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Young Adults

Funding Sources

  • USDL/Women's Bureau (through Florida SED)
  • USDE/Women's Educational Equity Act
  • NYSED/Migrant Education
  • NYSED/Sex Equity Programs
  • Annual Mattera Scholarship Auction
  • Private Contributions to Scholarship Fund

What I Would Like My Mother To Know

  • she's always telling us what to do - sometimes she's right - sometimes she's wrong
  • we'd like her to listen to us
  • want more trust
  • listen more

Lo Que Quisiera Que Supiera Mi Madre

  • siempre la quiero igual
  • que mami tenga más coufianza
  • que escuche mas
  • mamra es mi méjor amiga

Young farmworkers often go directly, and all too early, from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence is short, and its life choices may be hard. Their conflicts reflect the economic and social problems farmworkers face. In Latino families, they can also stem from the clash between traditional gender role expectations: being a good daughter, becoming a good wife and mother, and the challenges and opportunities of the 1990s: staying in school, college, careers.

The WINDOWS program addressed these life choices for migrant women. WOW (Women, Options, and Work) brought 100 mothers and daughters, recruited through local Migrant Education Outreach Programs, together every year. They explored and shared feelings, as in these flipsheets from actual workshops. The WOW model developed by Patricia Edwards has since been disseminated to California and Florida.

WIN, Women in the Nineties, and GAIN, Getting Ahead in the Nineties, conduct gender-specific summer career retreats at SUNY Geneseo for young women and men. They learn about college, visit workplaces, and are mentored by role models. One participant said: "It really helped me to see that a woman can make it in this world." WIN and GAIN serve 49 girls and 25 boys every year.
 

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