Rural Laws: January, 2002 - Number #8

Hope. The US Department of Labor funds a rest stop near Hope, Arkansas that has 60 rooms that rent for $3 for 12 hours; the rest stop is open March-December, and reports serving 35,000 farm workers and dependents a year.

Education. The Migrant Education Program provides supplemental education services to children ages 3 to 21 who moved during the past 36 months across school district lines, and a member of the family must be seeking employment in an agricultural or fishing activity. Typical services include individual tutorial and classroom instruction, counseling, cross-cultural education, advocacy, health fairs and translating services.

The Chicago Tribune profiled the ESTRELLA pilot Migrant Education Program, which provides laptop computers to 50 children of migrants based in Texas who travel with their parents, at a cost of $8,000 a student. Other pilot programs in Florida allow students to receive lessons through specially designed televisions over the Internet. A program in Kentucky gives students bilingual CD-ROMs with curriculums that they can complete in school computer labs.

Relatively few farm workers travel with their families from state to state because most families want their children to be educated in stable settings, and many states restrict the ability of children to work. Most of the 620,000 children enrolled in Migrant Education programs do not travel with their families, but may have in the past. Many adult migrants earn only $7,500 to $10,000 a year, which may call into question spending $8,000 a child for computer-based education.

On the Mexico-Texas border, some 3,300 students are enrolled in Migrant Education programs between Brownsville and Laredo. Many apparently cross the border from Mexico on a daily or weekly basis.

The U.S. Department of Education also funds the College Assistance Migrant Program, which makes grants to colleges to enable the children of migrant farm workers to attend. To be eligible, a student must have a migrant educational identification number, be a migrant farm worker, or have a parent who did at least 75 days of farm work in the previous two years, according to administrators.

Health. The health status of Mexican-born farm workers deteriorates the longer they are in the US, according to a survey of workers supported by the California Endowment (http://www.calendow.org/). Some 970 workers had physical exams and were interviewed, and legal residents had higher blood pressure and were more likely to be obese than unauthorized workers.

The two largest employer-provided health care plans are those of the Western Growers Association, which covers 40,000 farm workers, and the UFW-RFK health care plan, which covers 4,800 workers.

The US and Mexico in mid-October 2001 announced a joint initiative to improve the health of 11.5 million border area residents and Mexican migrants in the US. The population of the Mexican side of the border rose by 39 percent in the 1990s, and by 28 percent on the US side of the border.

MHS. The Texas Migrant Council operates 11 centers in Ohio, funded with $6 million from federal Migrant Head Start, to serve the families of 674 migrant workers and 134 seasonal farm workers in Ohio. During the harvest season, some of the centers are open 12 hours a day, providing early childhood education at no cost to the children of migrant farm worker parents.

The United Migrant Opportunity Services, founded in Wisconsin in 1965 to serve migrant and seasonal farm workers, expanded to Minnesota, South Dakota and Texas and now offers employment, health, cultural and other programs.

Lynn Brezosky, "Students crossing Rio Grande border," AP, November 22, 2001. Oscar Avila, "For migrant kids, laptop is lifeline," Chicago Tribune, October 28, 2001. James F. Smith, "U.S., Mexico Team Up on Health Care," Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2001.