Date of Graduation

Spring 5-14-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Migration Studies

College/School

College of Arts and Sciences

Department/Program

Migration Studies

First Advisor

Christina Garcia-Lopez

Abstract

Since its inception, the field of migrant education has been characterized by a tension between honoring the subjectivity of migrant families and positioning them as victims. This same tension exists in the analysis of children’s picture books that depict the daily lives of migrant farmworkers. In response to Eve Tuck’s (2009) call for a moratorium on damage-centered research in the field of education, this report describes the collaboration process between a representative of the Maine Migrant Education Program and a migrant

farmworker and her family to write, illustrate, and present an autobiographical picture book. Las aventuras, travesuras, y peligros del campo: Tres historias de mi niñez, by Estela Albor Villafuerte (see Appendix A), offers a much-needed intervention to the scholarship on migrant education and a valuable contribution to curricula developed by the Maine Migrant Education Program. Without ignoring the reality of oppression, Villafuerte’s work describes a life defined by independance, interpersonal connection, creativity, ingenuity, and humor. Aventuras should be utilized in Maine Migrant Education curricula because it offers children a reflection of themselves, their families, and their communities as whole rather than broken, and as complex individuals in control of their subjectivity rather than simplified victims in a story told by and for outsiders.

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