Sarah Motis

EDUC 6520
Vanderbilt University
Community Literacy Project

Description of the Immigrant Community

This project focuses on the immigrants from Honduras within the larger Latino

community in Nashville. In 2014, Latino immigrants made up about 7% of the total population

in Nashville. Immigrants from Honduras made up about 5% of the total Latino population.

(http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2016/08/nashville.pdf). The percentage of Latino immigrants

has continued to rise over the past few years. Many of the immigrants who come to Nashville

live in the Southeast part of the city. After looking at the stories of multiple Honduran

immigrants, it appears that many of them have come to the United States because of push factors

in their home country. Push factors are negative conditions that convince people to move out of a

certain country and pull factors make people want to move into a country (de Jong, 2011). Some

immigrants leave because of economic/political conditions and others leave because of violence.

According to an article in the Nashville Tennessean, some people left Honduras to escape

domestic violence and gang recruitment (Wadhwani, 2014). On the other hand, a video from the

Nashville Public Television Next Door Neighbors podcasts collection (2014) tells about Jesus,

who left Honduras for a chance for a better education (a pull factor for the United States). Jesus

also mentioned how he had to live with his aunt and uncle when he came to the United States

and that he missed the rest of his family very much (Npt, 2014). Many immigrants have to leave

family members behind when they come to the United States, which may cause many students to

have mixed emotions about being in the United States (Igoa, 1995). To Honduran immigrants,

family and religious life are very important cultural elements, which is a strength that they may

bring to the Latino community in Nashville (National Geographic, 2015). Organizations, such as
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Conexión Américas and the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition, provide support

for the entire Latino community in Nashville by offering services for home buying, education,

English classes, and legal assistance.

Community Artifacts

Within the Nashville Latino Community, I found many artifacts that made use of both

Spanish and English, such as newspapers, advertisements, information pamphlets, and food

items. There are two ways that I could make use of the newspaper in a classroom setting.

One of the activities would be geared towards 1st grade children

and the other would be geared towards 4th grade children. For the

first activity, the children could cut out pictures and words that are

meaningful to them from the newspaper and make an art collage

with the pictures and words. Then, the students could use their pictures to write an informative

piece about themselves (CCSS W.1.2) or could use their pictures as support to do a presentation

for their peers about themselves (CCSS SL.1.5). The second activity that could be done would

be for students to select an article that interests them in their native language, and then they could

orally explain the events and ideas from the article to a peer in English (CCSS RI.4.3). They

could also search for another article on the same topic in English on Newsela and then integrate

the information from both articles to explain the topic to a peer (CCSS RI.4.9). This activity

would also relate to science and social studies

standards depending on the topic being explored.

The food artifacts I found could be used by

students to participate in a collaborative

discussion about foods that come from a

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student’s native country. For example, I found two artifacts specifically from Honduras that a

student could talk about during a discussion with peers (CCSS SL Strand 1). Secondly, they

could be used to talk about the purposes of advertising and how students can interpret visual

information (CCSS RI Strand 7), and students could create and write their own advertisements

with a purpose and audience in mind (CCSS W Strand 4). Advertisement artifacts could also be

used to meet math and economic standards by talking about money and goods/services.

Learning about the Local Community

Doing a community literacy project helps teachers to learn about what goods and services

are available and familiar to their students. By visiting Casa Azafrán, I was able to see what

organizations are available to help the local community and how the community center is

considered a hub for Latino families. By going to Latino supermarkets, I was able to see what

products were advertised and what products were available to buy. This helps me to know what

products students might have at home.

There are some barriers to learning about the Honduran community. It can be hard to

figure out which products and services are actually relevant to this particular community.

Additionally, I was not able to actually speak with anyone from Honduras on this field trip, so I

don’t have a full perspective on how the people feel about their own community. I chose to

research the Honduran community in particular because I tutored a student from Honduras last

year at Una Elementary school, and I wanted to know more about her community. Gaining a

complete understanding of a community is not possible in just one day of observation. It takes

multiple experiences to attempt to understand a community.

Attending festivals held by the community, eating at restaurants specific to that

community, and researching the communities online could further help teachers to become
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familiar with a particular community. For example, after our community literacy field trip, I

found out that there was a Serbian festival happening in the neighborhood adjacent to my own.

Exploring the Serbian community would also be beneficial as I learn more about the cultural

communities in Nashville. Going to authentic restaurants would allow teachers to experience the

food specific to a certain country and would most likely allow interactions with people from that

country who work there or choose to dine there. Last, researching online can be helpful because

there are videos, news articles, and census data that are available to provide information about a

community.
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Works Cited

De Jong, E. J. (2011). Foundations for multilingualism in education: From principles to

practice. Caslon Pub.

Igoa, C. (1995). The inner world of the immigrant child. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc. (Ch. 2; p.37-68).

Nashville Public Television (Npt). (2014). “Jesus’s Story.” Next Door Neighbors: Storytellers.
http://blogs.wnpt.org/storytellers/2014/12/jesuss-story/

National Geographic. (2015). “Honduras.” National Geographic Kids.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/countries/honduras/#honduras-ocean-port.jpg

Pew Research Center (2014). “Characteristics of the Population, by Race, Ethnicity and Nativity:
2014.” Pew Research Center. http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2016/08/nashville.pdf

Wadhwani, A. (2014). “‘Border Child’ Tells of Path from Honduras to Tennessee.” Nashville
Tennessean. http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2014/09/23/border-child-tells-path-
honduras-tennessee/16085951/