Migrant Families and Language Report

This Participatory Action Research (PAR) was designed to: 1) Understand the experiences of Latino/a migrants in accessing English for Speakers of Other Languages courses in order to adapt current services to better meet the needs and demands of their communities; 2) Understand the implications of within-family-language-barriers for familial members’ wellbeing and integration into the community; and, 3) Use research findings to develop community actions to inform policy and programming around service delivery and resource generation for migrant communities. The PAR process is collaborative and community-based. It was conceived after two years of collaboration between two community-based organizations servicing migrants and refugees - Casa El Salvador and Women Encouraging Empowerment, Inc. - and the Migration and Human Rights Project at Boston College. The research questions were initiated by the community organizations and every subsequent step of the research project was done collaboratively by all partners. 

Findings from this PAR project can be found in an infographic and in an English and Spanish report below. The report situates Spanish-speaking migrants in Revere and East Boston within the larger context of immigrant families in the United States, discusses findings from interviews with parents and their adolescent children and concludes with recommendations for community members, community organizations, and policy makers committed to improving the wellbeing of the migrant communities.