Speech #890185397

Mr. Speaker. if ever there was an invisible and forgotten man In this country. he is the migrant farmworker. For years these hardworking and lowpaid people have been exploited with less humanity than we treat our oil and gas and other physical resources. They have been kicked around from State to State and farm to farm. stopping only to help harvest the crops without which we would hardly be an affluent society or a well fed people. Compounding their misery and their exploitation was the feudalistic bracero program. wisely and successfully terminated by Congress last year. One of the great myths that has existed in some places is that the migrant farmworkers. particularly those of Mexican descent. are especially suited for "stoop" labor. and that they cannot or will not learn the skills that would open up greater job opportunities. The oppressed. disenfranchised. subjugated migrant farmworker still suffers from the damage that has been done through the myth of his inferiority. Racial. religious. and ethnic discrimination take many forms and have historically hidden beneath many falsehoods. The myth of the laziness and the intellectual inferiority of the migrant farmworker falls in this category. Mr. Speaker. the migrant farmworkers have been literally buried beneath acres of false claims and false assumptions. Fortunately. they are beginning to dig themselves out. with the help of funds from the Office of Economic Opportunity. My purpose today is to inform the Members of this House of the adult migrant education program that is being conducted in San Antonio and several other cities in south Texas. Some time ago the Office of Economic Opportunity granted $3.3 million for an adult migrant education program in south Texas. Never before had any sustained manpower training program been attempted in this area for migrant workers. The reason given for the neglect of this large group of underprivileged and poverty stricken people by State officials and others amounted to the myth I have outlined. That is. that these people did not want to or could not learn to do anything except migrant farmwork. So the migrant farmworker received no training. and his children received little education. When you are the child of a migrant farmworker you go where the seasonal farmwork is. And seasonal farmwork does not normally coincide with the school year. It is quite typical for the children of migrant farmworkers to leave school before the end of the school year in order to travel across the country in search of farmwork. The effect of all this has been to maintain a large supply of lowskilled labor for the great farms and plantations not only of Texas but of States throughout the Nation. I am happy to say that even in the short time that the south Texas adult migrant education program has existed so far. the myth of the migrant has been proven false. The 3.000 adult migrant farmworkers that have enrolled in the current training program have amazed everyone with their earnestness. their willingness to learn. their enthusiasm for the program. and their attendance. In some south Texas cities daily attendance has averaged 98 percent. In San Antonio. for example. 80 adult students attend classes from 4 to 9:30 p.m.. 5 days a week.