Migrant farmworkers often know little about their rights in the United States, making it difficult for them to know how to press for change. Ken Barger, a professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI), has worked on his own and with students to empower this population by helping the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, an AFL-CIO labor union that represents Mexican farmworkers in America, to build a Farm Labor Education Center. The goal of the center is to provide farmworkers with the skills and information they need to engage in self-determination and seek socioeconomic reforms. Dr. Barber has provided his services as a facilitator and coordinator, working with farmworkers to design the center.
From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy
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