Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America“My world seems upside down. I have grown up but I feel like I’m moving backward. And I can’t do anything about it.” –Esperanza Over two million of the nation’s eleven million undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States since childhood. Due to a broken immigration system, they grow up to uncertain futures. In Lives in Limbo, Roberto G. Gonzales introduces us to two groups: the college-goers, like Ricardo, who had good grades and a strong network of community support that propelled him to college and DREAM Act organizing but still landed in a factory job a few short years after graduation, and the early-exiters, like Gabriel, who failed to make meaningful connections in high school and started navigating dead-end jobs, immigration checkpoints, and a world narrowly circumscribed by legal limitations. This vivid ethnography explores why highly educated undocumented youth share similar work and life outcomes with their less-educated peers, despite the fact that higher education is touted as the path to integration and success in America. Mining the results of an extraordinary twelve-year study that followed 150 undocumented young adults in Los Angeles, Lives in Limbo exposes the failures of a system that integrates children into K-12 schools but ultimately denies them the rewards of their labor. |
Contents
| 1 | |
CollegeGoers and Early Exiters | 35 |
Inclusion and Belonging | 58 |
4 School as a Site of Belonging and Conflict | 73 |
Beginning the Transition to Illegality | 92 |
Learning to Live on the Margins | 120 |
Managing the Distance between Aspirations and Reality | 149 |
How Immigration Status Becomes a Master Status | 176 |
Managing Lives in Limbo | 208 |
Notes | 237 |
| 257 | |
| 279 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
academic activities adolescence adulthood American Angeles began belonging California State University campus childhood citizenship classes cloture college-goers and early community college continuation school counselors cultural DACA deportation didn’t DREAM Act driver’s license early exiters eligible enforcement enrolled Esperanza everyday experiences family members feel felt financial aid friends future Genova go to college Gonzales graduate green card hard high school immi immigration status inclusion labor Latino legal exclusions liminal limited lives Los Angeles low-wage membership Menjívar mented mentors Mexican Mexico migrants Misto move narratives neighborhood opportunities options parents participation Pedro peers Pew Hispanic Center Plyler political postsecondary Ramon relationships residents respondents rience Roberto Rumbaut Social Security number stigma struggle Suárez-Orozco teachers tion told transition to illegality tuition undocumented children undocumented immigrants undocumented status undocumented students undocumented young adults United University of California Yeah