The Power of Community: Mobilizing for Family and Schooling

(Paperback)

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Fifteen years ago, Concha Delgado-Gaitan began literacy research in Carpinteria, California. At that time, Mexican immigrants who labored in nurseries, factories, and housekeeping had almost no voice in how their children were educated. Committed to participative research, Delgado-Gaitan collaborated with the community to connect family, school, and community thus giving birth to the Comit- de Padres Latinos. The Power of Community is a critical work that shows how communities that pull together and offer caring ears, eyes, and hands, can ensure that their children thrive - academically, socially, and personally. It offers a fresh approach and workable solution to the problems that face schools today.

Reviews

This ethnography documents how complex cultural processes that occur within Mexican immigrant communities, and between immigrant communities and Mexico are implicated in the success of children and their schools. Though faced with these challenges along with substantial cultural, language, and structural barriers, the people of COPLA persevere to unite the parents, teachers, and school administrators of Carpenteria around the common goal of improving the education of children. At a time in our history when the gap between teachers and parents, and the problems of low achievement in many schools with culturally diverse populations persists, this ethnography documents how collective action taken by adults on behalf of children can create a sense of 'belonging and connectedness' which can transform both school and community. Concha Delgado-Gaitan has chronicled a timely and much needed tale of hope. -- Jeffrey Lewis, University of Wisconsin, Madison
A profound achievement. The reflexivity that is part of both Concha Delgado-Gaitan's ethnographic research and her writing provides a model of mutual respect and trust between researchers and researched which future studies of community language, literacy, and education would do well to heed. -- Marcia Farr, University of Illinois at Chicago
A valuable ethnography of the educational challenges and successes experienced by children and their parents in a Mexican immigrant community in the United States. * Journal Of International Migration and Integration *
The Power of Community is essential reading for educators, activists, and community development experts who want to understand the diversity and complexity of immigrant Mexican families' struggles, challenges, and strategies to provide their children with a good education in an educational system that does not address their value and needs. The book shows that meaningful change and empowerment are possible from the grass-roots level, and gives a model for other communities' self-empowerment. -- Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo --, University of California, Davis

Author Bio

Concha Delgado-Gaitan is the author of numerous books and articles on families and communities and the recipient of The George and Louise Spindler Award (2000) honoring her work in educational anthropology. She is currently an independent writer living in San Francisco.