“My whole childhood, I never had a bed.” That’s how Elva Trevino Hart opens her memoir “Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child.”
“Barefoot Heart” is 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 compromised, consequences that are not inevitable, but are rather a series of choices made along the way. Barefoot Heart is also the story of how the author overcame the disadvantages of this background and discovered her true talents and, in the process, found herself. “Barefoot Heart” was chosen as the book for the 2009 Common Literature Experience at Utah State University.
Elva 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 mathematics 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 and is currently working on a novel and collection of short stories.
