Rio Grande Valley business and political leaders often tout their migrant farm roots. In the coming months we’re bound to see plenty of commercials from candidates bragging about their parents to toiled in agricultural fields and orchards, and their ability to escape that life and find success in the political world. Lawyers especially talk about similar backgrounds, suggesting that such a life has steeled them to be tough and persistent as they advocate for their clients.
People familiar with such work know what a hard life it can be, and understand that even as they appreciate their parents’ willingness to work hard to support their families, it’s a life they want to escape.
Fortunately, educational institutions recognize those desires, and the special needs the children in migrant families have as they often have to leave one school and enroll in another when the harvest ends in one part of the country and they must head to other farms elsewhere. Educators in our public schools and higher institutions deserve thanks and applause for their work and the special programs they have created to help migrant students.
They include the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and its College Assistance Migrant Program, which was established in 1972 at UT-Pan American and retained when UTPA and UT Brownsville merged into the current institution.
CAMP continues at both UTRTV campuses in Brownsville and Edinburg. The Brownsville recently received a five-year, $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education; the funds are to help the university recruit and enroll 45 migrant seasonal farmworker students who themselves or their parents work in seasonal or migrant farm jobs during the students’ first year of college.
The program offers academic tutoring, peer mentoring, financial aid and career guidance.
“The program gives students the tools to succeed beyond their first year and builds on the work ethic and sacrifice they have seen modeled by their families,” Cindy Valdez, associate vice president for college access and K-12 partnerships, said in a statement issued by the university.
The results are impressive. According to the release, 86% of CAMP students complete their first year of college, and of those 92% continue their matriculation. Officials suggest these students, most of whom are the first in their families to pursue higher education, follow the example of their parents’ strong work ethic and apply it to education, setting their own example for other family members.
Programs such as CAMP help not only to bring new educational opportunities to residents who until recently lacked many such opportunities, and they are changing the educational culture in an area that continues to improve historically high dropout rates and low achievement. They will be a key part of the Valley’s continued efforts to improve economic opportunities and historically high poverty levels.
Such programs, and those who can succeed through them, have something to brag about.
