BARRIO OR FAVELA HERE AND THERE A Study in contrasts

from Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza

Ernesto Galarza When Ernesto Galarza was eight, he and his parents migrated to Sacramento, California, where he worked as a farm laborer. Excelling at school, he became one of the first Mexican-Americans from a poor background to complete college, after which he received a M.A. from Stanford in 1929, and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1944.

Labor Organizer  Galarza returned to California, where—at the height of the Cold War and McCarthyism—he organized unions for farm laborers, joining the effort to create the first multiracial farm worker union. While this effort failed, it created the foundation for the United Farm Workers Union of the 1960s.

Author  He wrote several books, most notably the 1964 Merchants of Labor, on the exploitation of Mexican contract workers, and the 1971 Barrio Boy, about his own childhood. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.

Mazatlán

Sacramento California

What is a Barrio? A barrio is a part of a town or city where most of the people are Hispanic.

Young Ernesto from Mexico had just arrived in the United States and at Lincoln School. On his first day, a formidable but friendly principal and her young interpreter greet Ernesto and his mother. His kind, supportive teacher continues the process of welcoming him to his new country and helping him with his new language. Ernesto and the other immigrant children form a bond as they learn English and adapt to their new lives. The school staff guides them to take pride in their diverse backgrounds.

Look carefully at the expression on this boy’s face. What emotions do you think he is feeling? Does this picture convey the emotions that an immigrant child might feel as he enrolls in a new school? Why? Or

Think again about the difficulties a child might face when moving from another country to the U.S. What problems might they encounter? How might you describe a person who went from the barrio to a Ph.D.?

Latin American Barrio  The barrio, or favela, is usually a slum on the outskirts of a city. It is made up of haphazardly built squatter shelters made for whatever materials could be found in other people’s discarded materials. They lack paved streets, sewers, piped water, and legal electricity service.

Barrios

Favelas

Startling Contrasts