Migrant students find their voices during writing workshop

Jennifer L. Berghom

EDINBURG — With the help of a professional poet, migrant students from Raymondville to Zapata found their voices to tell their stories about what it's like to travel all over the country with their families every year for work.

At first the teenagers seemed hesitant to bare it all on paper, but by the end of Wednesday morning they shared what it was like to see all of their possessions packed up in boxes, leave their friends and familiar surroundings and move somewhere where no one spoke Spanish or understood their culture.

About 75 middle school students from six schools attended the Cosecha Voices writing workshop at the University of Texas-Pan American as part of the university's annual Festival of International Books & Arts.

The Cosecha Voices project started at the university about two years ago to allow graduate students to write about their experiences growing up in migrant families and help others tell their stories. Students have traveled to Puerto Rico to share their work and plan to visit Rutgers University in New Jersey next month, said Stephanie Alvarez-Martínez, a UTPA professor who teaches the graduate writing class.

This is the second year Cosecha Voices has had workshops for middle school students during the festival, Alvarez-Martínez said.

Many students said it was the first time they had ever been asked to write about their experiences leaving the Rio Grande Valley and traveling with their families all over the country for work.

"It's like they actually care about our stories," said 14-year-old Adela Davila, an eighth-grader from Memorial Middle School in Edinburg.

With the exception of some giggles, students remained serious throughout the morning session as poet Tato Laviera had them shout out their schools' rally cries and join him in reciting poems as a warm-up.

Laviera asked students to write 10 sentences about their experiences growing up in migrant families. They hesitated at first, but after receiving encouragement from teachers and graduate students they began to jot down their memories.

Throughout the morning, students were asked to share parts of their work. They wrote about how they saw their families toil in the fields for many hours for meager pay, how they had to say good-bye to their friends every year as they traveled north and how they experienced racism from teachers and students at schools they transferred to during migrant season.

One boy wrote about how a student at a school he transferred to up north called his family trash. Enraged, the boy punched the student who made the comment.

"I ripped my skin with his tooth," the boy read.

Laviera congratulated the students on their work and encouraged them to keep writing about their experiences because people want to know about them.

"In the United States right now, the most important area everybody is looking at is this area where you live," Laviera said to the students. "And everybody is looking to find out about your story."