Youth Held At The Border

Illegal. Undocumented. Remedial. DREAMers. All of these labels have been applied to immigrant youth. Using a combination of engaging narrative and rigorous analysis, this book explores how immigrant youth are included in, and excluded from, various sectors of American society, including education. Instead of the land of opportunity, immigrant youth often encounter myriad new borders long after their physical journey to the United States is over. With an intimate storytelling style, the author invites readers to rethink assumptions about immigrant youth and what their often liminal positions reveal about the politics of inclusion in America. Book Features: Engaging case studies that capture the lived experiences of immigrant youth, from secondary school and beyond, a cohesive analysis of how immigration law, education, and health intertwine to shape possible life pathways, descriptions of educational practices that both support and disempower newcomer immigrant students, recommendations for interrupting day-to-day practices that privilege some, and disadvantage others.

Illegal. Undocumented. Remedial. DREAMers. All of these labels have been applied to immigrant youth. Using a combination of engaging narrative and rigorous analysis, this bookexplores how immigrant youth are included in, and excluded from, various sectors of American society, including education. Instead of the land of opportunity, immigrant youth often encounter myriad new borders long after their physical journey to the United States is over. With an intimate storytelling style, the author invites readers to rethink assumptions about immigrant youth and what their often liminal positions reveal about the politics of inclusion in America. Book Features: Engaging case studies that capture the lived experiences of immigrant youth, from secondary school and beyond.A cohesive analysis of how immigration law, education, and health intertwine to shape possible life pathways.Descriptions of educational practices that both support and disempower newcomer immigrant students.Recommendations for interrupting day-to-day practices that privilege some and disadvantage others. Lisa (Leigh) Patel is an associate professor of education at Boston College. She has been a journalist, a teacher, and a state-level policymaker. “Over coffee, tears, and laughter, I spent a delightful morning stunned at the beauty of Leigh Patel’s writing and swept up in the pages of Youth Held at the Border, a piercing analysis of how laws move under the skin and penetrate the soul and a tragicomedic musical of young people improvising lives at the dangerous intersection of U.S. immigration, criminalization, education, and welfare policies.” —From the Foreword by Michelle Fine, Graduate Center, CUNY “Poignant and insightful. . . . After reading this book it will no longer be possible to use code words like ‘undocumented’ and ‘illegal’ to keep these young people silenced and confined to the shadowy world of fugitives.” —Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development, Executive Director,Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University “Lisa Patel is both ethnographer and poet in telling stories of anguish and desperation, but in the end, stories of hope and survival. All teachers, and anyone who cares about the future of our nation, must read this book.” —Sonia Nieto, Professor Emerita, School of Education, University of Massachusetts “Patel brings into compelling focus and with love young people who are all around us yet not wholly seen. This is an essential read for all educators and for youth, many who will recognize themselves and their peers in her narrative.” —Susan E. Wilcox, SEW Consulting, community and university educator, writer

"This book explores the experiences of unaccompanied immigrant youth once they arrive to the United States, with a focus on the professionals who try to help. Once youth are detained at the border, they encounter a wide range of professionals whose job it is to help youth find a family system, obtain legal relief, and enter into the education system. Although many professionals who work to help youth often have youth's best interests in mind, their jobs are shaped by three important strains in U.S. history: border security, racialized child welfare, and neoliberal humanitarianism. Because of this, professionals who work with youth find that they are often complicit in the same oppressive systems that they work against. This book explores the tension in this system by providing a critical lens to those who try to help"--

Hispanic Old Testament scholar Daniel Carroll brings biblical theology to bear creatively on the current immigration conversation with an eye to correcting assumptions on both sides of the issue.

Winner, 2019 Inaugural Outstanding Ethnography Book Award, given by the Ethnography in Education Research Forum The stories of Mexican migrant women who parent from afar, and how their transnational families stay together While we have an incredible amount of statistical information about immigrants coming in and out of the United States, we know very little about how migrant families stay together and raise their children. Beyond the numbers, what are the everyday experiences of families with members on both sides of the border? Focusing on Mexican women who migrate to New York City and leave children behind, Motherhood across Borders examines parenting from afar, as well as the ways in which separated siblings cope with different experiences across borders. Drawing on more than three years of ethnographic research, Gabrielle Oliveira offers a unique focus on the many consequences of maternal migration. Oliveira illuminates the life trajectories of separated siblings, including their divergent educational paths, and the everyday struggles that undocumented mothers go through in order to figure out how to be a good parent to all of their children, no matter where they live. Despite these efforts, the book uncovers the far-reaching effects of maternal migration that influences both the children who accompany their mothers to New York City, and those who remain in Mexico. With more mothers migrating without their children in search of jobs, opportunities, and the hope of creating a better life for their families, Motherhood across Borders is an invaluable resource for scholars, educators, and anyone with an interest in the current dynamics of U.S immigration.

A People Magazine Best Book Fall 2021 From celebrated Indigenous author Thomas King and award-winning Métis artist Natasha Donovan comes a powerful graphic novel about a family caught between nations. Borders is a masterfully told story of a boy and his mother whose road trip is thwarted at the border when they identify their citizenship as Blackfoot. Refusing to identify as either American or Canadian first bars their entry into the US, and then their return into Canada. In the limbo between countries, they find power in their connection to their identity and to each other. Borders explores nationhood from an Indigenous perspective and resonates deeply with themes of identity, justice, and belonging.

"Simply brilliant, both in its granular storytelling and its enormous compassion" --The New York Times Book Review The story of two refugee families and their hope and resilience as they fight to survive and belong in America The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries--yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the twenty-first century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas. Mu Naw, a Christian from Myanmar struggling to put down roots with her family, was accepted after decades in a refugee camp at a time when America was at its most open to displaced families; and Hasna, a Muslim from Syria, agrees to relocate as a last resort for the safety of her family--only to be cruelly separated from her children by a sudden ban on refugees from Muslim countries. Writer and activist Jessica Goudeau tracks the human impacts of America's ever-shifting refugee policy as both women narrowly escape from their home countries and begin the arduous but lifesaving process of resettling in Austin--a city that would show them the best and worst of what America has to offer. After the Last Border situates a dramatic, character-driven story within a larger history--the evolution of modern refugee resettlement in the United States, beginning with World War II and ending with current closed-door policies--revealing not just how America's changing attitudes toward refugees have influenced policies and laws, but also the profound effect on human lives.

What is it like to run away from bombing, lose your family, and work out how to take care of yourself in a foreign country when you are seven years old? What do you do when the woman who promised you a good job in Europe turns out to have sold you into prostitution? How do you escape from torture and detention in Libya? What is it like to almost drown in the Mediterranean and then be confined in a garbage and rat-filled settlement on a Greek island for years? In this book, Lynne Jones answers these questions by combining direct testimony from children with a blazingly frank eyewitness account of providing mental health support on the front line of the migrant crisis across Europe and Central America in the past five years. Her diaries document how a compassionate welcome shifted to indifference and hostility toward those seeking refuge from war, disaster, and poverty in the richest countries in the world. They shine light on what it is like to be caught up on the front lines of the migrant crises in Europe and Central America, either as a person in flight or as a volunteer trying to help. They show how people who have fled war, poverty, and disaster—trapped in degrading, humiliating living conditions—have responded with resourcefulness and creativity. In the absence of most large professional humanitarian agencies, migrants and volunteers together have created a new form of humanitarianism that challenges old ways of working. Today there are 79 million forcibly displaced people in the world today, 1 percent of the world’s population. Understanding the perspectives of people on the move has never been more important. The Author's profits from this book will be donated to the charity: CHOOSE LOVE/HELP REFUGEES