READ MORE: Migrant education funding based on old population estimates
When Beatriz Perez moved to Oregon in 1996, she found work at various Washington County nurseries through a temporary labor agency. Without a driver’s license or car, she and her family moved frequently to stay close to job sites -- once a year for eight years.
Moving most affected her oldest child, 16-year-old Blanca Martinez Perez, who attended six elementary schools in three school districts before the family settled in Forest Grove nine years ago.
“She was doing terribly in school,” Perez said of her daughter. “Just when she was getting good, we’d move. Now, thank god, she’s doing better.”
Oregon experts say migrant workers, who mainly come from California and Washington, now tend to stay for years in one place – a stability change that is boosting their children's education. Before the Migrant Education Program started in 1966, more than 90 percent of migrant students dropped out of school nationwide. Last year in Oregon 55 percent graduated in four years, compared to 69 percent of non-migrant students.
Most migrant students in Oregon are Latino, though some are Russian and Native American. Oregon ranks No. 5 in states with the most migrant students as of 2011.
Jose Rivera, executive director of Centro Cultural, said migrant workers have over time learned the importance of stability in the educational success of their children. The community center in Cornelius was founded in 1972 by some of the area's first settled Latino families.
“Most who come to Centro plan to stay or have been,” he said. “Once they see the opportunities here in education for their kids, they want to stay.”
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Historically, farm workers migrated freely between the United States and Mexico until the 1986 immigration reform made travel between countries much more rigid.
Professor Susana Rivera-Mills at Oregon State University said migrants traveling after the reform have to carry proof of legal status. For those crossing into the country illegally, she said the journey is dangerous because amped up border security has made for risky alternatives, such as walking through long stretches of desert or paying smugglers who require migrants to sneak in drugs.
Rivera-Mills said that’s why migration around Oregon has skyrocketed.
“It is such a difficult journey for them and the risks are so high that if you’re coming here, you’re going to bring your entire family and stay as long as possible,” she said.
Anecdotally, state experts credit the change from interstate to intrastate migration to factors including high gas prices and increased deportations under the Obama administration, which made families afraid to move frequently. Most families now either travel within the state or settle in one place and send one member -- usually the father -- out of state for agriculture work.
*Data based on Alice Larson's Oregon Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Enumeration Profiles
Alice Larson, a Washington-based researcher specializing in farm worker populations, has been tracking the migration change in Oregon for years. She has completed farm worker studies in 17 states, two in this state.
In 2013, she estimated there were about 87,000 farm workers in Oregon's agriculture, nursery and food processing industries, of which 31 percent were migrant and 69 percent were seasonal. Among counties with the most farm workers, Washington has the biggest population split with 80 percent seasonal versus 20 percent migrant.
Larson's 2002 study shows about 100,000 farm workers, including 38 percent migrant and 62 percent seasonal. Back then Washington County had 48 percent seasonal and 52 percent migrant workers.
For the casual observer, the distinction might not be obvious. Seasonal farm workers, according to Larson, are individuals who live close enough to return to their normal residences after work. Migrants also work on a seasonal basis but can’t return to their regular homes at night for part of the year.
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Like many other migrants, Perez, 40, came to Oregon in search of a better life. Originally from Guerrero, one of the poorest states in Mexico, she spent one month working in California before heading north with the promise of a better job.
She didn’t expect that opportunity would cause her children to suffer. But when teachers called Perez, they were frank: the migrant lifestyle was hindering her daughter’s educational success.
“It was hard because I was constantly starting over,” said Martinez Perez, now a junior at Forest Grove High School. “I would be paying attention (in class) but think ‘I don’t get it; I’m lost.’”
Educators define eligible migrants as families that cross school district lines for agriculture work at least once every three years. Once they qualify, students receive help during school, after school tutoring, pre-school and summer school. In Oregon, those students also get free accident insurance, health services, breakfast and lunch. Services are paid for with about $10 million in federal funds and no state money.
Jonathan Fernow, migrant specialist at the Oregon Department of Education, said there has been a huge decline in migrant programs across the country as families settled, machines replaced some workers and the Great Recession affected employment opportunities. In Oregon, participation numbers during the regular school year have dropped from a high of 30,700 in 2003 to 18,600 in 2013.
Olga Acuña is director of federal programs and community outreach at Hillsboro School District, the third largest migrant student region in the state after Southern Oregon Educational Service District and Salem/Keizer School District. Having arrived in Oregon 23 years ago as a migrant student, Acuña has seen the change in migration firsthand.
“I don’t remember my dad going to meetings or being invited to the schools or being informed on how the schools run,” she said. “Now we make sure parents get information from our schools in both languages. Services have increased tremendously.”
In Oregon, 43 percent of migrant students are not proficient in English, higher than the 35 percent nationally. Experts say the state’s demographic shift from largely migrant to largely seasonal workers hasn’t changed most of the issues their children face as students.
Increased stability means those students no longer spend large periods of time out of school, but parents and advocates say some continue to struggle learning English, accessing educational resources and succeeding despite socioeconomic obstacles. Statistics on that population are not known, as former migrant students are not tracked.
“If they stop migrating in middle school and they settle, it’s going to take that student a long time to catch up,” Acuña said. “That’s something we still haven’t figured out how to overcome.”
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Perez has worked at the same Forest Grove nursery since 2004. The job is seasonal -- most of the year it’s full-time, but between August and October she sometimes works just three days a week. She said her salary is $1,200 per month, on average.
Larson's study found that the nursery industry -- Oregon's top-ranked agricultural commodity worth $745 million -- has started providing longer-term employment. She said the food processing, milk and cattle industries also provide higher levels of steady jobs.
After the recession, Larson said in the study, “growers began to change their practices to keep a smaller but more stable workforce.”
“The agriculture industry would like to find jobs that would keep their seasonal workers around longer so they don’t have to have this massive influx of people they have to find on short notice,” she said.
Having a steady job means Perez’ children are doing better in school. The flip side is that they are no longer eligible for migrant education funding.
Last summer, her daughter wanted extra learning help. Regular summer school would cost $140 for two classes. That was too pricey, so she stayed home and just did homework.
Acuña said school districts work with students who can’t afford summer school or other opportunities. But she said Latino families tend not to ask for outside help, usually either because of fear surrounding legal status or lack of knowledge about the education system.
“The other thing I don’t want to do is assume someone needs something,” Acuña said. “It’s a hard game. As an educator I have to be very sensitive in how I approach students and families.”
Perez never intended to stay in Oregon. Farm work can be done anywhere, she said, and Oregon is colder than she’d like.
“Now, more than anything, I stay to give my children stability,” she said, her youngest son Alejandro snoring softly on her shoulder. “It’s better.”
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Bridget Cooke sees the cultural impact of Oregon migrants and their children every day at work as executive director of Adelante Mujeres, a Forest Grove nonprofit that provides education and support services for low-income Latinas and their families.
Many of the people Cooke’s organization serves are former migrant workers who have settled. One of the organization’s programs, Adelante Chicas, helps young Latinas develop leadership skills, cultural identity and academic success by partnering with local schools.
Cooke said expectations of migrant students are slowly changing.
“Their presence is normalizing bilingualism,” she said. “It is also pushing schools to think very seriously about diversity.”
Migrant families are changing Oregon. The longer their children stay, the more schools and communities absorb their culture. Some schools have implemented dual-language immersion programs and incorporated cultural snippets, such as traditional Mexican baile folklorico dance classes, further deepening the state's multicultural reality.
Another example is Hillsboro School District's Mariachi Band "Una Voz," which is comprised of middle and high school students from five area schools. Band Director Dan Bosshardt said music is a vehicle for keeping culture and language alive, especially for families that have undergone major geographic transition.
“The majority of my students are Hispanic,” he said. “More than many other music (types), the music of mariachi is embedded in the culture.”
Jose Rivera, of Centro Cultural in Cornelius, said as migrant families settle permanently into Oregon communities, the children pass their culture onto their peers.
More than ever before, Rivera said, Anglo families turn to Centro Cultural to learn Spanish, help their neighbors learn English and sign their children up for the organization’s after school and summer programs.
“It’s more like an immersion,” he said, now going both ways. “The draw is through the kids.”
Acuña, of the Hillsboro School District, said seasonal farm worker parents are also more immersed in their children’s education. She recently expanded an advisory council for parents of migrant, Latino and English language learner students at the district.
“My students know my history,” she said. “They know I was a migrant worker and have come far to be in a position that is influential. That gives me hope.”
When future generations of migrant families settle in the area, she said, they won’t be alone.
--Andrea Castillo