First-year seminar reaches out Spanish-speaking students teach migrant workers English

Author: Joey Interian

It's not often that MIddlebury's first-year seminars provide students with an opportunity to work closely with members of the community, let alone delve into one's own personal background. Yet for Lauren Sanchez '11, Associate Professor of Spanish Ana Martinez-Lage's class did just that.

Miami, New York, Los Angeles - certain cities are inherently associated with large immigrant populations. Middlebury, on the other hand, hardly seems to be a hotspot for immigration, but a recent predicament has attracted migrant workers to this small New England town.

A few years ago, farms throughout Vermont were in crisis due to a shortage of workers willing to perform manual labor for low pay. Many dairy farms in particular were on the verge of shutting down. Now, the farmers are essentially dependent on migrant foreign labor because it is relatively easy to find people from developing countries who are willing to work under those conditions for minimal benefits.

Currently, there are about 500 migrant workers in Addison County, most of whom entered the country illegally. This situation prompted MartÌnez-Lage to teach a first-year seminar that would bring awareness to the plight of local migrant workers.

The course, entitled "Life in Two or More Languages," includes a required community service component. Students were paired up and assigned to work with a local migrant worker (or family of workers), whom they visit at least once each week. The program involves tutoring the workers to help them achieve proficiency in English, especially with terms that relate to their jobs. These include phrases that allow them to express when they need a break or to ask about the status of their paychecks.

The Middlebury first-years in the seminar have partnered with the Migrant Education Program, an organization dedicated to providing English education to immigrants who have not attained legal status.

Sanchez, a Seattle, Wash. native and the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, first became interested in the seminar as a way of exploring her own identity.

"It was interesting to watch my student struggle to learn English and visualize my father in a similar situation," Sanchez said.

Sanchez's student is a Mexican immigrant who arrived in Vermont about six months ago and has been working on a dairy farm about 20 minutes from campus. (Because of the current immigration status of the migrant workers featured in this article, The Campus has decided not to divulge their names.) The man plans to return to his family in Mexico once he has collected enough money from his work. His life in Vermont has consisted of walking from his house to the farm where he works and back again, because his illegal status in this country prevents him from participating in typical everyday activities.

"It's such a different lifestyle, and it's only 20 minutes away," said Sanchez.

Most of the migrants do not venture far from their homes or the farms they work on and their only interactions are with other Spanish-speaking migrants and their supervisors, when necessary. Because of their limited interactions with Americans - most of them do not even brave local supermarkets - they do not have much of an incentive to learn English and most of them return to their homelands after only a few years.

Joseph Molefi '11, who hails from Botswana, tutored the six-year-old daughter of a Mexican migrant worker as part of the seminar.

"I think one of the main things we accomplished is that the migrants got to see that they are welcome by us," Molefi said. "We appreciate their contribution, and even though they work 'menial jobs' it is very important to our economy."

Since Vermont has an agrarian economy, the migrant workers are a vital part of the success of the farming industry.

"They're the backbone of all of Vermont's economy," said Rebecca Harper '11. "If they were all deported at once, there would be a huge economic slowdown in the entire state. The government here is extremely aware of this. That's why it's rare for them to get deported or for farms to be raided."

The town of Middlebury has implemented policies to protect these workers from deportation in recent months. In an effort to encourage illegal immigrants to cooperate with the police, the Middlebury select board passed a resolution in October that would allow officers to check the immigration status of a person only if they are suspected of committing a crime.

One of the techniques the students used to facilitate the transition into English is code switching, which involves interchanging between multiple languages in conversation. The student tutors also employ tools such as audio CDs and picture vocabulary books to help improve the workers' pronunciation and visual association skills. Other supplies include flash cards and ESL (English as a Second Language) workbooks. The work has helped students understand the importance of language in human interactions.

"I came to realize how important the ability to communicate with each other is and how difficult it is to learn a second language, English in particular," Sanchez said.

For most of the migrant workers, their lives and livelihood depend on knowing English. They have to be able to communicate with their supervisors at work, and everyday tasks require the use of English. Learning English has also allowed the workers to connect with other community members.

"It's almost more important to be a friend to them in this new and strange environment than a teacher," Harper said. "Because most of their family is back home, being someone they can laugh with and just spend time with is something they really need. It also makes the learning come faster."

Harper also tutored a Guatemalan immigrant over the summer and plans on teaching English to Spanish-speakers as a future profession. Many other students taking the seminar feel similarly inspired to continue their work with the program because of the success they have seen this semester.

"One time we were erasing something on the whiteboard and instead of saying 'Espera,' my student said 'Wait,'" said Sanchez. "That was really demonstrative of the progress he had made."