|
The subject of my study is women who are initiating social change in a small region in Texas. The women are Mexican Americans who are, or were, migrant agricultural workers. There is more than one kind of innovation at work in the region, of course, but I have chosen to focus on three related patterns of family behavior. The pattern I life style represents how migrant farm workers of all nationalities lived in the past and how many continue to live. I treat this pattern as a baseline with which to compare the changes represented by pattern II and III. Families in pattern I work and travel in extended kin units, with the eldest male occupying the position of authority. Families are large-eight or none children are not unusual-and all members are economic contributors in this strategy of family migration. Families in pattern II manifest some differences in behavior while still maintaining aspects of pattem I. They continue to migrate but on a reduced scale, often modifying their schedules of migration to allow children to finish the school year. Parents in this pattern often find temporary local jobs as checkers to make up for lost farming income. Pattern II families usually have fewer children than do pattern I families. The greatest amount of change from pattern I, however, is in pattern III families, who no longer migrate at all. Both parents work full time in the area and have an average of three children. Children attend school for the entire year. In pattern III, the women in particular create new roles for themselves for which no local models exist. They no only work full time but may, in addition, return to school. They also assume a greater responsibility in family decisions than do women in the other patterns. Although these women are in the minority among residents of the region, they serve as role models for others, causing moderate changes to spread in their communities. | 
