Children of migrant farm workers, many of them from indigenous Mixtec families from Oaxaca, begin learning basic reading, writing and social skills in a day care nursery school program run by Migrant Head Start, part of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District. Children who go through Head Start programs learn much more quickly, and have an easier time making social adjustments, once they begin regular school.
The Migrant Head Start program has been going on for two decades. It tries to provide both childcare and a learning environment for the children of people who work in the fields, including families who travel with the crops. Other families work several months in the U.S., and return to Mexico during the off-season.
Learning in a home environment has important advantages, according to Teresa Gallegos, whose center is in a Watsonville working-class neighborhood. "Parents who live in this neighborhood can drop their kids off before they have to be at work," she says. Field labor jobs start at 6 or 7 AM, while it's still dark, long before schools open. "Plus we share the same culture and know what's happening in their lives."
Teresa Gallegos and the children in her center.
Maria Juarez and her sister Clarita taking a nap.
Clarita Juarez learning to look at books.
Yesenia Gallegos and children look at books.
Marcos Gonzalez and Nathaniel Rivera are friends and are learning to read in the center run by Ofelia Ortiz Maldonado.
Yareli Reyes shows the paper where she is learning to write letters, in Maria Ines Rocha's center.
Brisa Avalos' parents work in the fields, and she's using the plastic vegetables to explain what they do.
Children sing and gesture with their hands as they follow Veronica Fernandez in her center.
Children playing ball outside Veronica Fernandez' center.
Olivia Diaz draws on an easel with her marker.
