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Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child
A vividly told autobiographical account of the life of a child growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. It brings to life the day-to-day existence of people facing the obstacles of working in the fields and raising a family in an environment that is frequently hostile to those who have little education and speak another language. Assimilation brings its own problems, as the original culture is attenuated and the quality of family relationships is comprimised, consequences that are not inevitable but are instead a series of choices made along the way. It is also the story of how the author overcame the disadvantages of this background and found herself.
236 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
41 people are currently reading
701 people want to read
About the author
Elva Treviño Hart
4 books12 followersElva Treviño Hart was born in south Texas to Mexican immigrants. She spent her childhood moving back and forth between a small, segregated south Texas town and Minnesota. She has a bachelor's degree in theoretical mathmatics and a master's degree in computer science/engineering from Stanford University. She worked as a computer professional for twenty years. She now lives in Virginia.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews
September 7, 2009
This book was USU's selection this summer for the Common Literature Experience, so I thought I'd give it a try. The topic (autobiography of a migrant worker) interested me, and the first few descriptive chapters were well-written and easy to get into.
Then the wheels kind of fell off the bus. I suspect that the book was first written as a series of essays because there is so much repetitive exposition on circumstances and themes, such as the background of her mother's illness, sibling dynamics within the family, and the scarcity of resources. This book would have been much better if it were about 100 pages shorter. Instead of reinforcing the repeated points, the author comes off as whiny, making sure you adequately remember every little flaw about her life.
This feeling is further exacerbated by the author's reported reaction to the many experiences of her life, both good and bad. When she is little, she sits on the side of the road while her family works in the field: she feels abandoned. When she makes other friends, both white and Mexican, she judges them for their insensitivity. She does everything she can to do well in school and be the best, but when she is chosen as valedictorian, she dislikes being set apart from the other students. She spends her growing up years wishing for economic prosperity and the finer things in life, and when she gets them, she bemoans not having the hard life of her older siblings. Even when she's a six-figure earner at IBM, she feels alone and emasculated. I want to respect the author's hard life and the tremendous things she's done, but the story as a whole does not come off as inspirational. The story mostly sounds how I think it was: a exercise for her many therapy sessions.
Sadly, the many beautiful passages of this book (which were the spare, matter-of-fact descriptions, not the extra analysis that was intended to be beautiful) were overshadowed by the underlying, unsatisfied tone of the whole book.
Then the wheels kind of fell off the bus. I suspect that the book was first written as a series of essays because there is so much repetitive exposition on circumstances and themes, such as the background of her mother's illness, sibling dynamics within the family, and the scarcity of resources. This book would have been much better if it were about 100 pages shorter. Instead of reinforcing the repeated points, the author comes off as whiny, making sure you adequately remember every little flaw about her life.
This feeling is further exacerbated by the author's reported reaction to the many experiences of her life, both good and bad. When she is little, she sits on the side of the road while her family works in the field: she feels abandoned. When she makes other friends, both white and Mexican, she judges them for their insensitivity. She does everything she can to do well in school and be the best, but when she is chosen as valedictorian, she dislikes being set apart from the other students. She spends her growing up years wishing for economic prosperity and the finer things in life, and when she gets them, she bemoans not having the hard life of her older siblings. Even when she's a six-figure earner at IBM, she feels alone and emasculated. I want to respect the author's hard life and the tremendous things she's done, but the story as a whole does not come off as inspirational. The story mostly sounds how I think it was: a exercise for her many therapy sessions.
Sadly, the many beautiful passages of this book (which were the spare, matter-of-fact descriptions, not the extra analysis that was intended to be beautiful) were overshadowed by the underlying, unsatisfied tone of the whole book.
September 30, 2009
I have to admit that I am not the biggest memoir fan. Personal therapy sessions for thousands of people to share don't interest me much, so from the start I was not too intently interested in Barefoot Heart. I am, however, interested in Latin American culture--I even wrote my master's thesis on Mexican migration narratives--so I wouldn't say that Barefoot Heart was completely out of my realm of interest either. In the end, I can sincerely say that I enjoyed it, even if I found much of it laced with annoying, retrospective emotional resolutions.
Where the author had me most interested was in the stories of hardship and the relationship of the family during those times of hardship--particularly in the beet fields of Minnesota. Even though things were rough and didn't feel as if they could get much worse, the situation seemed to bring the family closer together, more so than any other story that the author speaks of--and as the reader, you really come to enjoy the company of each character in the family. I also appreciated the author's detailing of her journey of overcoming poverty and rising to magnificent success--the true American dream of rags to riches, with a pleasant Latin flair to the whole thing.
The problem I had with these moments, however, is when Mrs. Hart looks back at those memories with, what seems to me, the bitter angst and intellectual condescension that surely was lent to her in academic writing groups or an editor with a carbon-copied memoir formula. Can it not be possible that a childhood is just that--a childhood? And is it not possible that said childhood would still be interesting, even if it weren't padded with non-creative and unconvincing reflections on societal and family oppressions? I am not suggesting that such oppressions were not real or not there, but I am suggesting that they might not have been anymore a part of her life than all of the good things that happened to her, but went unnoticed with a retroactive writing. Her siblings went through all the same things that she did, worse even, and yet as far as I can tell, they seem pretty stable at the end, without the need for extensive, emotional revisiting of their childhood lives. Why is this? Perhaps her "search for herself" (as the back of the book puts it in its most cliched, memoir language) has misplaced the source of her problems with easy, decoy literary and academic standbys. I did not live the author's life, so I can only speculate on what feels real in her writing and what is missing, but--for instance--it is interesting to me that religion played an important role in her youth, especially when most of her family was not active participants in religion, and she found comfort there. Yet, when she grows into her wild success and subsequently finds herself empty--and the implication, as far as I could tell, is that all of this is a period of her life without religion--she harks back for reconciliation with an oppressed childhood as the means for healing. There is no mention of a spiritual dearth, but of course that isn't as intellectually trendy. Personally, I don't buy the bogeyman that she has set up to be conquered. I hope she is truly happy, but I do wonder if somewhere down there are some other feelings--such as a duty to a belief and ritual that brought her happiness before--which are still struggling to come to terms with the author today. That is just one venue of ideas that could be explored. There are, certainly, many others. Please understand that I am not accusing the author of purposeful deception--I believe she is sincere in her efforts to come to terms with some depressing moments in her later life; I simply felt as if the driving force behind many of the stories had unnatural and misplaced motivations ... that is what the writing felt like to me, and this is my sincere response.
For what it is worth, however, while these missing pieces mar the narrative with red herrings here and there, they still provide some touching moments. About a fourth of the way into the book, I correctly guessed where the main moment of reconciliation would come (using the tried and true memoir formula). Sure enough, it did come, just as I had predicted. But to the author's credit, it was still powerful and rang true. The funny thing is, the author then goes on to give what she thinks is the real moment of reconciliation, and it is a lackluster moment, or--more optimistically--cutely humorous. The powerful moment has already occurred, and now years later, the author is trying to force herself into another more literary/traditional reconciliation moment--which comes across to me, the reader, and probably to the second party in the reconciliation--as unnecessary, but--fine--we'll humor you. Ultimately, no harm done, but it does steal some of the thunder from the original moment. That--of course--epitomizes the rest of the book pretty well. Throughout, it has some pretty powerful images and moments, but the forced intellectualism steals a lot of the thunder ... that doesn't mean the thunder isn't there; you just have to find it.
Where the author had me most interested was in the stories of hardship and the relationship of the family during those times of hardship--particularly in the beet fields of Minnesota. Even though things were rough and didn't feel as if they could get much worse, the situation seemed to bring the family closer together, more so than any other story that the author speaks of--and as the reader, you really come to enjoy the company of each character in the family. I also appreciated the author's detailing of her journey of overcoming poverty and rising to magnificent success--the true American dream of rags to riches, with a pleasant Latin flair to the whole thing.
The problem I had with these moments, however, is when Mrs. Hart looks back at those memories with, what seems to me, the bitter angst and intellectual condescension that surely was lent to her in academic writing groups or an editor with a carbon-copied memoir formula. Can it not be possible that a childhood is just that--a childhood? And is it not possible that said childhood would still be interesting, even if it weren't padded with non-creative and unconvincing reflections on societal and family oppressions? I am not suggesting that such oppressions were not real or not there, but I am suggesting that they might not have been anymore a part of her life than all of the good things that happened to her, but went unnoticed with a retroactive writing. Her siblings went through all the same things that she did, worse even, and yet as far as I can tell, they seem pretty stable at the end, without the need for extensive, emotional revisiting of their childhood lives. Why is this? Perhaps her "search for herself" (as the back of the book puts it in its most cliched, memoir language) has misplaced the source of her problems with easy, decoy literary and academic standbys. I did not live the author's life, so I can only speculate on what feels real in her writing and what is missing, but--for instance--it is interesting to me that religion played an important role in her youth, especially when most of her family was not active participants in religion, and she found comfort there. Yet, when she grows into her wild success and subsequently finds herself empty--and the implication, as far as I could tell, is that all of this is a period of her life without religion--she harks back for reconciliation with an oppressed childhood as the means for healing. There is no mention of a spiritual dearth, but of course that isn't as intellectually trendy. Personally, I don't buy the bogeyman that she has set up to be conquered. I hope she is truly happy, but I do wonder if somewhere down there are some other feelings--such as a duty to a belief and ritual that brought her happiness before--which are still struggling to come to terms with the author today. That is just one venue of ideas that could be explored. There are, certainly, many others. Please understand that I am not accusing the author of purposeful deception--I believe she is sincere in her efforts to come to terms with some depressing moments in her later life; I simply felt as if the driving force behind many of the stories had unnatural and misplaced motivations ... that is what the writing felt like to me, and this is my sincere response.
For what it is worth, however, while these missing pieces mar the narrative with red herrings here and there, they still provide some touching moments. About a fourth of the way into the book, I correctly guessed where the main moment of reconciliation would come (using the tried and true memoir formula). Sure enough, it did come, just as I had predicted. But to the author's credit, it was still powerful and rang true. The funny thing is, the author then goes on to give what she thinks is the real moment of reconciliation, and it is a lackluster moment, or--more optimistically--cutely humorous. The powerful moment has already occurred, and now years later, the author is trying to force herself into another more literary/traditional reconciliation moment--which comes across to me, the reader, and probably to the second party in the reconciliation--as unnecessary, but--fine--we'll humor you. Ultimately, no harm done, but it does steal some of the thunder from the original moment. That--of course--epitomizes the rest of the book pretty well. Throughout, it has some pretty powerful images and moments, but the forced intellectualism steals a lot of the thunder ... that doesn't mean the thunder isn't there; you just have to find it.
January 19, 2009
Wow! An amazing look into what it was like for a migrant family. I would love anyone who has ever said, or thought "They come over here taking our jobs" to read this story. What a hard and difficult lift. What a life full of love and family. Family is first. If you work hard, you benefit the family.
I think every child should try to see the life they live and why through their parents eyes. I think more of us would understand why our parents do what they do. Maybe it isn't our job as children to question them.
I think every child should try to see the life they live and why through their parents eyes. I think more of us would understand why our parents do what they do. Maybe it isn't our job as children to question them.
October 4, 2010
I could relate to this book. I wasn't exactly a migrant but having picked cotton from the age of 6 to 12, I found the book endearing and painful at times. This book is the first little girl Hispanic migrant autobiography that I have read and I think she did an awesome book in detailing her life.
May 22, 2015
Subtitled: Stories of a Migrant Child. This is a memoir of the author’s childhood, when she and her family would travel from Texas to Minnesota each summer to work the fields.
I found the book compelling and interesting, full of the kinds of childhood memories that were familiar to me – family outings, a mother’s cooking, a father’s expectations and rules, games played, neighborhood fiestas, and a favorite toy received at Christmas. It also had some heartbreaking memories – the loneliness, the feeling of “differentness” or not belonging, and the lack of things we consider basic (like a bed or indoor plumbing). I understood the young Elva’s conflicted feelings about school – wanting to excel at something, yet wanting NOT to be singled out for praise.
Where the book broke down for me was in Part Three, when the adult Elva begins to explore her background as a way of understanding her own emotional / spiritual struggles as an adult. It seemed too much like an assignment a therapist might have given her to keep a journal of her feelings. The result is that I ended the book no longer admiring her for her dedication, industriousness and motivation, but annoyed with her self-absorbed reflection. I’m glad she was able to work through her personal demons, and I’m glad she found her writer’s voice. But I would have been happier with the book if she had ended it sooner. For me, she lost a star with part three.
I found the book compelling and interesting, full of the kinds of childhood memories that were familiar to me – family outings, a mother’s cooking, a father’s expectations and rules, games played, neighborhood fiestas, and a favorite toy received at Christmas. It also had some heartbreaking memories – the loneliness, the feeling of “differentness” or not belonging, and the lack of things we consider basic (like a bed or indoor plumbing). I understood the young Elva’s conflicted feelings about school – wanting to excel at something, yet wanting NOT to be singled out for praise.
Where the book broke down for me was in Part Three, when the adult Elva begins to explore her background as a way of understanding her own emotional / spiritual struggles as an adult. It seemed too much like an assignment a therapist might have given her to keep a journal of her feelings. The result is that I ended the book no longer admiring her for her dedication, industriousness and motivation, but annoyed with her self-absorbed reflection. I’m glad she was able to work through her personal demons, and I’m glad she found her writer’s voice. But I would have been happier with the book if she had ended it sooner. For me, she lost a star with part three.
January 19, 2018
I was really looking forward to this book, but initially found it to be slightly tedious. The subject matter was fascinating - a very young Mexican American migrant worker in the 1950's (and by very young I mean ages 3-13) telling the stories she remembers from her childhood now in her adulthood. The stories were also very interesting and compelling, it was her writing style that lost me at times. HOWEVER, I did read to the end and am so glad I did...taken together, it is a truly beautiful story and one I think so important for those of us in the dominant American culture to understand much better than we do.
September 24, 2009
I learned how others rose above poverty and prejudice and still be proud of where they came from.
July 21, 2023
Disclaimer: author was an acquaintance of mine as an adult and learning her story was enlightening. I knew her as an accomplished and intelligent woman scientist and appreciate her disclosure of her childhood to help us learn more about her life as the daughter of migrant workers. I appreciated her straightforward style of writing and the way she ended the book. Would love to have known more about the intervening years as she grew in her career and how her success impacted her family relationships. Well done, Elva!
March 19, 2025
Elva Treviño Hart's memoir, Barefoot Heart, is one of the best I have ever read.
October 31, 2019
3.5 stars
As the youngest of six children, Elva's life experience was shaped by the dynamics of her family and the way that her father chose to help them improve their circumstances. While she was a little girl, their family would travel from their home in Texas up north to work as migrant farmers. Feeling lesser in so many ways: female, Mexican, poor, Elva soon learns where she should look for approval and its not at home!
Rather than a cohesive narrative, Barefoot Heart is more a collection of essays and memories about Elva's childhood and adolescence. Sometimes poignant, sometimes a bit repetitive, she details a world so different than the one my mother grew up in, although they would've been children at the same time. Many images from this story are very vivid in my mind: of the home where they lived while working the farms, their first home of their own, little Elva in the fields. Each member of the family is described well enough that I could keep everyone straight. I liked the first 2/3 of the book a little better than the final 1/3, I'm not sure why, maybe the very ending felt super rushed to me. However, I did appreciate how she took some time to detail all the processing and effort it took to make peace with her childhood experiences.
It's not so amazing that everyone would enjoy it but I'm glad I tried it.
As the youngest of six children, Elva's life experience was shaped by the dynamics of her family and the way that her father chose to help them improve their circumstances. While she was a little girl, their family would travel from their home in Texas up north to work as migrant farmers. Feeling lesser in so many ways: female, Mexican, poor, Elva soon learns where she should look for approval and its not at home!
Rather than a cohesive narrative, Barefoot Heart is more a collection of essays and memories about Elva's childhood and adolescence. Sometimes poignant, sometimes a bit repetitive, she details a world so different than the one my mother grew up in, although they would've been children at the same time. Many images from this story are very vivid in my mind: of the home where they lived while working the farms, their first home of their own, little Elva in the fields. Each member of the family is described well enough that I could keep everyone straight. I liked the first 2/3 of the book a little better than the final 1/3, I'm not sure why, maybe the very ending felt super rushed to me. However, I did appreciate how she took some time to detail all the processing and effort it took to make peace with her childhood experiences.
It's not so amazing that everyone would enjoy it but I'm glad I tried it.
June 9, 2007
I'm growing less favorable toward this book. It is not a page turner. Episodes are not resolved, left hanging. Just not terribly interesting. Migrant years are only in the early part of the book. I don't think this is a contender. I certainly could NOT be a cheerleader for this book. I'm closed to finishing but it has become a task rather than a joy.
Author is a very young child in 1953, the only date mentioned so far. She moves from Texas to Minnesota to Wisconsin back to Texas with her family to work various crops.
So far the story if very interesting. Author was very observant of her siblings at such a young age.
I'm reading this as a possible title for Shelby County Reads but I don't think it has a broad enough appeal.
I don't like collected stories as well as one smooth, connected narrative.
Author is a very young child in 1953, the only date mentioned so far. She moves from Texas to Minnesota to Wisconsin back to Texas with her family to work various crops.
So far the story if very interesting. Author was very observant of her siblings at such a young age.
I'm reading this as a possible title for Shelby County Reads but I don't think it has a broad enough appeal.
I don't like collected stories as well as one smooth, connected narrative.
February 12, 2010
I had to read this book for a college class. It wasn't awful, but I was annoyed by the constant repetition, contradictions, and the "woe is me" writing style of the author. She's always whining about how bad her life is, and how nobody cared about her or payed attention to her, but then she turns around a few pages later and talks about how she knows she was loved, and her family sacrificed so much for her. Perhaps its because I had just finished reading The Glass Castle, but I felt like shouting, "Would you quit your whining! There are a lot of people out there that have it a lot worse than you do!" Anyway, this is probably not a book I would recommend unless the topic is particularly fascinating to you.
July 20, 2010
As a migrant child myself, I identify with this book a lot! The descriptions are so vivid, that it reminded me of my own childhood and I pretty much cried throughout the book. It was also very empowering!
September 10, 2010
Well written literature. These musings of a girl as she grows up are not just Hispanic, universal. The positive bond of this family and the father's priority to see the children finish high school and value education made me enthusiastic my city is reading it.
January 7, 2009
This book was a perfect example of resilience!
July 14, 2017
Hart describes her life as the youngest child of Mexican migrant farm workers in Pearsall, Texas and in the beet fields of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Unlike her many older siblings, Elva Trevino Hart left the world of her birth for college and graduate school in computer science and a well-paid career as a salesperson for IBM. But we hear little of that later success.
The stories here bring us close to the experience of growing up on the "wrong side of the tracks" in every sense. The warmth of her family and community, her growing awareness of her self and the place that the world had assigned to her, are all beautifully presented. Perhaps because she was so much younger than her siblings, she spent time alone and developed a sense of her self that incorporated excellence in school, and this enabled her to move far beyond her place of origin, to college and professional success. We sense that in writing this book she is returning to her family and culture, after a long separation.
The book is not exciting or fast paced. It is a leisurely walk through a child's world, an attempt to recover what the author seems to feel she almost lost in her rush toward success. Although slow in pace, it is a book that I wanted to pick up again each night before I slept. I was driven to see it to the end. I know things now about the world that I didn't know before I read this. It is a very good memoir.
The stories here bring us close to the experience of growing up on the "wrong side of the tracks" in every sense. The warmth of her family and community, her growing awareness of her self and the place that the world had assigned to her, are all beautifully presented. Perhaps because she was so much younger than her siblings, she spent time alone and developed a sense of her self that incorporated excellence in school, and this enabled her to move far beyond her place of origin, to college and professional success. We sense that in writing this book she is returning to her family and culture, after a long separation.
The book is not exciting or fast paced. It is a leisurely walk through a child's world, an attempt to recover what the author seems to feel she almost lost in her rush toward success. Although slow in pace, it is a book that I wanted to pick up again each night before I slept. I was driven to see it to the end. I know things now about the world that I didn't know before I read this. It is a very good memoir.
May 7, 2017
Several years ago, as part of the realization that our school demographic was beginning to include many more Hispanics than it used to have, our school librarian decided to buy more books featuring Hispanics. This book was part of the purchase. I was the first to check the book out.
This is not a middle school appropriate book. Although it's really good, I know parents who would protest some of the content. Personally, I disagree but we have some really protective parents.
I know (of) Pearsall. The author is roughly the age of my parents who also grew up in pre-Civil Rights Texas. The stories told by the author reminded me of the stories my own father has told me about school (kids with tacos/tortillas not being allowed to eat in the school cafeteria).
My parents, though, were never migrants. Those stories, instead, reminded me of my own friends who grew up in migrant camps and whose families followed the fields. I remember driving past fields full of ladies in black pants with huge hats and huge scarves bending over crops and seeing cars and trucks with small children sitting in the shade waiting for their families next to the fields.
To sum it up, this book brought back memories that I didn't even know I had.
This is not a middle school appropriate book. Although it's really good, I know parents who would protest some of the content. Personally, I disagree but we have some really protective parents.
I know (of) Pearsall. The author is roughly the age of my parents who also grew up in pre-Civil Rights Texas. The stories told by the author reminded me of the stories my own father has told me about school (kids with tacos/tortillas not being allowed to eat in the school cafeteria).
My parents, though, were never migrants. Those stories, instead, reminded me of my own friends who grew up in migrant camps and whose families followed the fields. I remember driving past fields full of ladies in black pants with huge hats and huge scarves bending over crops and seeing cars and trucks with small children sitting in the shade waiting for their families next to the fields.
To sum it up, this book brought back memories that I didn't even know I had.
October 19, 2025
I read this book for a class last semester and I enjoyed both the content of the book itself and the conversations it sparked in class. What moved me most was how hard Elva’s parents worked so their kids could have choices they never had. The love isn’t loud or showy; it’s in the small, everyday things—rides before dawn, packed lunches, lessons said softly when everyone’s worn out. The family bonds are the book’s heartbeat: siblings stepping up for each other, parents holding the line so the next generation can step over it. The writing is simple in the best way, which makes the tender moments hit even harder. I left feeling lifted by how fiercely this family loves. It’s a beautiful reminder that sacrifice is another word for love—and that love can change lives.
July 5, 2017
-Making solitary memories.
-I left the black and white movie of my childhood and escaped into Technicolor of books.
-I cried for all the affirmation I wouldn't get, for all the hopes, fears, and opinions I had inside that no one would ever hear.
-Their ideas about dating were not only Mexican but Victorian.
-I left the black and white movie of my childhood and escaped into Technicolor of books.
-I cried for all the affirmation I wouldn't get, for all the hopes, fears, and opinions I had inside that no one would ever hear.
-Their ideas about dating were not only Mexican but Victorian.
June 5, 2019
This book reminded me so much about my childhood. I just wish the author would have left out the part about her adulthood I felt like that kind of ruined the book towards the end but two-thirds of it is amazing.
September 26, 2023
I picked this little gem up at a used book sale. The cover story reminded me of American Dirt, which I read some months back.
If you're open to looking at the immigrant life from the inside, gaining understanding, I suggest this good story.
If you're open to looking at the immigrant life from the inside, gaining understanding, I suggest this good story.
September 1, 2017
A nice rags-to-riches story that focuses mainly on the "rags" part. Great descriptions of how it was to grow up the hard way.
January 24, 2019
Very quick read. It was really interesting to read how a child sees being a migrant worker.
May 26, 2019
Poignant!
March 28, 2020
This book was required reading for my History 102 course in college. The professor sent the papers we had to write about the book to the author.
November 2, 2020
very well written, deeply moving journey from poverty to professional success
October 10, 2021
3.5 stars
Read
July 6, 2022Book club pick and probably USU Convocation
May 26, 2024
SO GOOD
Displaying 1 - 30 of 124 reviews