Mario T. Garcia, a history professor in the University of California, supplies readers with a major description of migrant life in California during the late 1900s after assigning his students to prompt oral history papers. A paper on Tywoniak’s aunt and her journey from migrant daughter to a university student, led to a 35 hour conversation followed by the editing of transcripts and a final manuscript. The moving testimonio of a young Mexican American Women and her struggle to rise out of poverty as a migrant daughter spanned for ten collaborated years. Frances recalls her childhood in New Mexico all the way until she graduates from college at UC Berkeley. She was raised by her mother’s family who consisted of Hispanic settlers who used to own most of the land in New Mexico. Furthermore, Frances describes how important women’s role were to village and to their husbands. Although Frances’s mother would teach her children to speak English, Frances’s father prohibited them from speaking another language that was not Spanish. “His angry assertion that ‘(here in my house Spanish is spoke) was delivered with a menacing look.” (21). …show more content…
According to Paul Cohen, Frances’s life shifts to her recollections on her family’s struggle for economic stability and her search identity within her home, labor camp, urban barrio, high school, and college campus. Frances never felt more ashamed than ever to be a Mexican daughter. She started defying his father towards speaking English at home since it started becoming difficult for her to live in two distinct world; the one she lived at home and the one she lived at school. Frances states how in comparison from her brother and sister she took education