ERIC Number: EJ1447554
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1555-9734
EISSN: N/A
"Saliendo del Pueblo": Migration, Literacy, and Non-Literacy Practices in a Mixtec Farmworking Community
Guadalupe Remigio Ortega
Community Literacy Journal, v18 n1 Article 4 p24-41 2023
This article draws from interviews with two Mixtec migrant farmworkers whose life experiences demonstrate how communication, language, and community, across time and borders, impact the ways Indigenousmigrants choose to practice literacy and non-literacy. Using their stories, I disrupt and decenter the Western definition of literacy and instead present it as a tool for discrimination that erases the Latinx Indigenousvoices, knowledge, and ways of being by replacing it with reading and writing. Instead, I introduce non-literacy as a representation of positive and proud oral traditions that counter the many effects of discrimination. Moreover, non-literacy helps us understand how oral Indigenousmigrant communities make the choice to prioritize the orality of their culture even when surrounded by reading and writing. This approach offers a more appropriate and respectful way to understand how oral Indigenouscommunities choose to live and make sense of the world around them.
Descriptors: Literacy, Migration, Agricultural Laborers, Communication (Thought Transfer), Language Usage, Community Influence, Indigenous Populations, Social Bias, Speech Communication, Illiteracy, Foreign Countries, Writing (Composition)
Community Literacy Journal. e-mail: dcc@fiu.edu; Web site: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/communityliteracy
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Mexico
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A