And The Earth Did Not Devour Him

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Research Product: Protection Mechanisms for Migrant Workers”

In this activity, students will research labor conditions and protection mechanisms for migrant workers in a country of their choice.

In 2022, the Biden Administration released the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection between the American continents. This declaration is one of many regional and international forms of protection aimed at protecting the rights of migrant workers; however, despite the attention of the international community on the necessity of protection mechanisms, migrant workers continue to face a variety of difficulties in host countries.

In this Activity, you will construct a research product (such as slides, an infographic, a series of visual aids, or a paper) on one country that imports migrant workers and examine the country’s protocol on protecting the foreign workforce. Use the following questions to guide your research:

• How many foreign workers migrate to this country every year? What are the countries of origin of these migrant workers?
• For how many years has this country encouraged workers to migrate?
• Are these workers seasonal and/or dependent on a specific industry?
• Does this country have any bilateral agreements with other countries regarding special arrangements for migrant workers?
• Is this country a state party to any regional and/or international declarations regarding migrant worker rights?
• Does this country have strong labor laws nationally?
• Are all migrant workers protected? Or does the country make distinctions between “legal” and “illegal” migrants?
• How are the labor conditions in this country? Do these conditions compare with the conditions presented in the novel?

Present your findings and share your research product to the class and reflect on the similarities and differences between countries in a post-presentation class discussion.

Teaching Suggestion: This Activity refocuses Rivera’s commentary on labor conditions for migrant workers in the US within the context of protection mechanisms for migrant workers globally. In addition to the flow of workers from Mexico to the US, many other countries rely on migrant workforces to complete menial labor and work that is deemed undesirable by the national workforce. Additionally, a migrant workforce is usually cheaper for employers, since these workers are frequently paid in cash or under the table (which means it is not reported by the employer), and because of this they have no legal rights to ensure that they are receiving the legal minimum wage that nationals receive. Rivera explores the difficult labor conditions of migrants, such as the death and sickness of workers (including children), poor travel conditions in the truck, and the financial strain of life in the north, none of which is protected by any national labor laws.

If it makes sense for your classroom, students might follow a traditional research process for their visual product (i.e., annotated bibliography, thesis statement, outline, draft, peer review), submitting each step for approval. The draft may look different depending on the visual medium that the student chose, such as slides, an infographic, etc. This Activity links with the second Short Answer Question and Chapters 5-7 Paired Resource. It could be helpful to list six to eight appropriate countries for students to choose from. This could make the process simpler for you when guiding them as they gather research, and it could be beneficial to have two or three students working on the same country when moving to the peer review (those students could coach each other and pool useful resources).

Differentiation Suggestion: English language learners, students with dyslexia, and students with attentional and executive function differences might benefit from a streamlined process to reach the learning goals. It could be helpful to offer some suggested thesis statements for the students to choose from, rather than having them write it from scratch. Another option (that allows more independence) would be to have sentence stems that the student can use to write their thesis statement. When beginning the first draft, a graphic organizer might make the project more accessible. The graphic organizer could be separated into areas of research and each could have a question (from the questions above) to guide the research and break the project into more manageable chunks. This graphic organizer might also be used as an alternative assignment format for students who struggle with visual expression.