For These Children, Every Picture Tells a Story

Tony Guerrero’s kindergarten class knows that cactuses grow in desert regions. But thanks to an innovative arts program for migrant farm children, the 6-year-olds from Del Valle Elementary School in La Puente also know how to draw portraits of the spiky succulents, write poems about desert wildlife and conserve water in times of drought.

“These kids are not dumb, they’re just experience-poor,” said Guerrero, director of migrant education for the Hacienda La Puente School District.

His program teaches 150 children at 26 schools. It has proved such a success that the Los Angeles County Office of Education has launched its own version, modeled after the one Guerrero started two years ago in the San Gabriel Valley.

California has an estimated 170,000 migrant students, probably more than any other state, says John Masla, a consultant with the state Department of Education’s Office of Migrant Education. In Los Angeles County, there are 20,000 such students.

Educators say these children tend to lag academically behind their peers and lack confidence in themselves. Fully 50% of them drop out of school.

Guerrero’s program succeeds in reaching these high-risk students because it builds self-esteem while whetting their interest in the world around them and teaching critical-thinking skills.

The program is so popular, in fact, that Guerrero says some parents who left migrant farm work have returned to the fields in order to qualify their children for enrollment.

When parents take their children to the arts classes, they are encouraged to sign up for adult English lessons that run concurrently. That way, Guerrero said, “we can educate the whole family.”

On a recent field trip to Rancho Santa Ana, a botanical garden at Claremont College, the children learned about botany and plant genetics and discussed the impact of pollution and pesticides on the food chain. They also discussed the drought.

“We talked to them about what they should be planting and how to conserve water,” Guerrero said.

Guerrero, who has taught at the Hacienda La Puente District for 17 years, has a master’s degree in urban education and brings an artistic sensibility to his work.

“All too often we use left-brain methodology in teaching children,” he said, “whereas many children use their right brain, and art is the perfect vehicle for this.”

Los Angeles County schools, which started a migrant farm arts program six months ago, have also posted successes.

Take David Velasquez, 6, who attends a Santa Fe Springs elementary school. He is the son of migrant farm workers, and just a year ago his transient family life placed him at great risk of dropping out.

But today, ask David about Joan Miro’s classic surrealistic painting “The Red Sun” and he will point out numerous circles, triangles and something that looks like a man with a turtle’s head. He also knows that Miro was from Spain and that he prefers works by Van Gogh.

Every week, in schools in eight districts throughout Southeast Los Angeles County, about 700 migrant children ages 5 through 14 are introduced to artistic masterpieces and, through them, are taught about geography, mathematics, history and literature.

“The arts seemed a natural way to reach migrant children because much of Mexican culture is based on popular art, dance, and music,” said Randolph Guerrero (no relation to Tony), a migrant education specialist who started the arts program for the Los Angeles County education office.

“Everyone in some way has had experience with art. We are seeking to use that experience to enrich his academic life.”

In teacher Josefa Wann’s classroom in Santa Fe Springs two weeks ago, David and seven other migrant children gathered before the Miro print. On the wall around them were copies of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” that they had made.

“Miro likes bright colors, playful colors,” Wann told her rapt pupils. “He likes primary colors. Do you know what primary colors are?”

“White?” asked one child.

Wann went over the primary colors, then moved on to shapes, asking the children to identify and count the circles and triangles in the piece. They quickly found triangles and circles, and several “tadpoles,” which they eagerly pointed out to Wann.

She then asked them how the paintings of Miro differ from those of Van Gogh. Later, she asked them to draw something that looked like Miro’s painting.

“I don’t want you to make trees or people,” she told them. “I want you to make shapes, triangles and circles and. . . .”

“Teacher, can we make frogs?” one girl asked.

“Make squiggles just like you did when you were little. Make your own painting,” Wann told her.

Already, Wann and Guerrero say, the children are benefiting.

“If this had been a really structured first-grade class, it would have been hard for them,” Guerrero said. “Many of them are shy and are afraid of being wrong. But in art there is no right and wrong. It is all interpretation, so there is no failure.

“Transiency has an incredible impact on children,” Guerrero said. “They move to a new town, a new school, sometimes once, twice a year. It is a double, triple whammy. Their whole world is up and down. It’s like being in a washing machine. It’s spin, spin, spin.”

David’s family moved to the San Joaquin Valley from Santa Fe Springs to pick peaches when he was 4 years old. They returned to the Santa Fe Springs area two years later in hopes of finding work.

With so much movement from school to school, Masla said, teachers sometimes see migrant children as outsiders. In some districts, she said, there is a perception that “migrant children are not our children; they are the county’s children.”

Providing supplementary education for these children is vital, Guerrero said. Besides the art program, the Los Angeles County Office of Education offers after-school classes, special Saturday summer classes and, in some districts, special counseling.

The county also brings in successful young adults who grew up in migrant families to act as mentors and role models.