The Dixon Migrant Center, near UC Davis in the Sacramento Valley.
WORKING TOGETHER
Only a Few Miles Apart: Migrant Families and UC Davis Undergraduates Learn Together in Summer Program
BY CHALON EMMONS
"The kids just need something to do," said Ethan Boxer-Macomber, a former UC Davis graduate student who spent ten weeks last summer working with a computer education program in the Dixon Migrant Center. The center, a complex of low residential buildings and well-tended lawns, is home to agricultural workers and their families during the harvest season, from April to October. "The gate is locked at night," Boxer-Macomber explained. "There's nowhere to go. At best they get to pick up a soccer game. The institutional character of the environment at the center must seem sterile to the kids."
Giving the kids at the Dixon Center something to do was one of Boxer-Macomber's goals when he worked with his graduate advisor, Dr. Jim Grieshop, to develop a computer program with the community. Other goals included helping young residents develop academic skills and aspirations for higher education, and giving migrant adults an opportunity to learn how to use computers and the Internet. Grieshop had piloted a popular computer project at the center in 1998, but limited funding and a scarcity of university students to staff the project during summer months led him to put the project on hold.
The Dixon Migrant Center is one of approximately 88 California labor camps, which are funded by the state and federal governments as a means of providing decent housing for families who work on local farms and ranches. Laborers who live in the center work in nearby fields, picking almonds, strawberries, and grapes, typically earning minimum wage for their work. They pay between seven and nine dollars a day to rent a unit with two, three, or four bedrooms to house themselves and their families. In order to rent in the center, workers must be migrants who live at least fifty miles away from Dixon during the off-season.
Because the children of migrant families change schools at least once a year, many perform below grade level and have a hard time catching up. Similarly, adults who live in the center have had limited access to formal education and few opportunities to develop computer skills.
Four years after the pilot computer project at Dixon, conditions seemed right to try again. Grieshop, a faculty member in the UC Davis Department of Human and Community Development, worked with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Summer Leadership Institute, a new program for university students developing leadership skills, to establish the Dixon Migrant Center as an internship site. Grieshop, who directs several other UC Links sites in the Davis area, had also secured UC Links funding to support a computer education program at the Dixon site.
Raul Lira, Senior Center Manager, invited Boxer-Macomber and Grieshop to a community meeting to discuss their ideas with Dixon Migrant Center residents, who expressed enthusiasm for the proposal. Most of the residents who attended the meeting said that they were interested in computer classes both for adults and for children.
Before program activities began, volunteers, led by Boxer-Macomber, set up a computer lab at the Center, assembling a network that included six donated computers and two computers and a printer on loan from the university. Richard Lowenberg, director of the Davis Community Network, a local nonprofit, offered free dial-up accounts so that four lab machines would have access to the Internet. Keith Prior and Jeff Woled of UC Davis also assisted in the creation of the computer lab. Principal Rena Ferrero of Dingle Elementary School, home to the LEAP/SALTO UC Links after-school program, loaned educational software to the Dixon Center for the summer.
In order to recruit university students to staff the computer lab and teach classes, Boxer-Macomber and Grieshop visited the first meeting of the UC Davis summer school leadership course offered through the Kellogg Summer Leadership Institute. They described the Dixon Migrant Center and the opportunity to design and implement a computer education program there. Seven of the 12 students volunteered. Two of these students spoke fluent Spanish. The following day, interns met Boxer-Macomber at the Center and toured the facility with Maria Peña, a Center staff member. Interns decided to hold a community meeting at the end of the week to hear from residents about their needs and wishes, and to develop with residents a class schedule for both adults and children.
"Interns learned how challenging it is to be in charge," said Boxer-Macomber, who acted as the project supervisor. Because the participating undergraduates were developing leadership skills, Boxer-Macomber and Grieshop believed it was important for interns to take primary responsibility for formulating goals, developing and implementing activities, and evaluating the program. "They learned what a responsibility having control is, and how much rides on communication, cooperation, and listening."
From the first day, interns faced a full lab of children and a host of unforeseen challenges. "The program was wildly popular," said Boxer-Macomber. "Every machine had two kids, and a half a dozen more usually waited outside." Despite participants' enthusiasm, interns struggled with unreliable computers, slow network connections, disruptive behavior, language barriers, and disorganized or missing software. The intern group agreed to meet weekly to share ideas and develop problem-solving strategies. They created systems for tracking student progress, encouraging productive behavior, and organizing software. They also made recommendations for sustaining the program and improving it in the future.
Boxer-Macomber said he loved watching the residents gain computer proficiency. "It was great to see their eyes light up. They'd say, 'Gosh, this isn't so hard.' When you're learning about computers, the first 10 percent of the effort is hard, then the other 90 percent falls into place more easily.
"It was also great to see the kids and the undergraduates bonding, chatting about daily life and the future. The undergraduates would say, 'You should go to UC Davis. It's cool.' Then the kids would get pensive, like they were thinking, 'Really?'
"While the migrant community and the university are only a few miles apart, they function as independently as if they were on separate continents. It was rewarding to see the kids and undergraduates develop personal relationships and break stereotypes they had about each other. It was also a powerful learning experience for the UC Davis students."
Chalon Emmons is a member of the UC Links Statewide Office staff. She edits the UC Links Newsletter.
Undergraduate interns and migrant children explore computer activities in the Dixon lab.
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