Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child

My husband and I grew up in a small South Texas town (1960's)where many families were migrants. I never had to go off and work the fields but my husband and his family did. When I came across this book my husband and I were going to take a trip to Cali. to visit our daughter(Navy-29 palms in 2001) I decided to read the book to him while he drove. I read all the way to CALI!We couldn't wait to hear what Elva had to say next.I would stop reading only to refuel and eat. The story made us laugh and cry:) I never had an idea on what it was like to be a migrant child.I not only sympathized for my husband and his family but for all the kids I grew up with that would show up at school in October. Kudos to Mrs Hart for sharing her story!I am buying a few books this Christmas to share with my Migrant friends! This is a must read book.(I've re-read it since then)

I cried and laughed when I read this book. My father was a migrant farm worker who didn't learn English until he was 13 years old.My father spoke of his memories with love and shame. I loved to hear the stories and be with my father. Because of the discrimination he faced and my own experiences, I had my own identity crisis growing up being Mexican. Through my own experiences and solid determination, I have learned to accept myself, love myself and be proud to be who I am. Elva Trevino has captured something that can't be explained. I thirst to learn more and to embrace my life and my father's life. Although I don't have the relationship with my father I have always longed for, I, like Elva, realize my father loves me in his own way. I'm sending him this book with love and hope. The door is always open.

I fell in love with this book for a number of reasons. First, I was reading from an educators perspective and felt there was much to learn and teach from Elva's experience. Secondly, I was reading about myself and my family. The migrant streams of the mid-century seperated many families and not until recently have they begun to reconnect. I met Elva 35-40 years ago as a little boy on one of two trips my father ever took back to Texas. My father Roberto Sada Trevino (authors first cousin) followed the migrant stream to Northern Colorado and like many before and after him never returned to their roots. Not until recently have some of these families begun to seek each other out. The book offers a pathway for discovery. Along with reading about her joys and struggles, I recall the stories my father told us about his experience. In our traditional cultural upbringing a first cousin of ones' parents is considered an Aunt or Uncle, lately that has shifted to be recognized as second cousin, but anyway you look at it, My Tia/Prima has opened up her Heart for the rest of the world to examine. For me the Trevino clan just got a little bit bigger. Can't wait for the next material.

Reading Elva Trevino Hart's memoir of her childhood in a Mexican-American migrant family was a fascinating experience. I know very little about Mexican culture and next to nothing about migrant workers, but Ms. Hart described the events of her life with such vivid detail that I felt as though I were right there with her family. I look forward to reading more from this wonderful author.

It's a great success story, from the hardships and hard, hard work of a migrant family to IBM honcho. But the greatest success is in turning back to her childhood and telling us of it with such honesty and love. And there is a particular quality in the telling that I think is hers alone and will be in anything else she writes: besides the love and warmth, what I can only describe as a magic aura, a special world in which the hurry and grasping of everyday life does not enter, where even the hardships turn beautiful because they are accepted so fully. On the last page of the book she addresses her father and mother and five brothers and sisters, "Sharing your lives has been a sacred privilege. I thank God that my life has been exactly as it was and that I shared it with you."