ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the Education Leadership Foundation—a leadership development community-based organization—in partnership with the Migrant Education Program uses parent retreats for building parent agency, and navigational capital of migrant farmworking families. Utilizing cooperative and community responsive practices, these retreats build on the Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) in migrant communities as parents develop cohesive networks and community leaders to engage in school advocacy in the service of their children. This study draws from testimonios and participant observations to reveal the particular ways that social, familial, and resistant capital are activated in the form of successful educational interventions. We examine the unique dimensions of leadership development within (im)migrant farmworker communities, and argue for the need to rethink the role of testimonios as a pedagogical tool in parent agency and capacity building for leadership in such communities. This chapter highlights successful policy development that comes from communities themselves and demonstrates that not all policies are top-down.
