From Preparación to Adaptación: Language and the Imagined Futures of Maya-Speaking Guatemalan Youth in Los Angeles

Educational Meaning Making and Language Learning: Understanding the Educational Incorporation of Unaccompanied, Undocumented Latinx Youth Workers in the United States

“…Once in Los Angeles, California, and despite their young ages, their institutional embeddedness denied them the English-language instruction that students typically receive. As unaccompanied, undocumented youth navigated sobrevivencia in U.S. labor contexts and across transnational communities during their transition into young adulthood (Canizales and O’Connor forthcoming), they made meaning of English language as education. This education meaning making developed through interactions in which youth were unable to communicate with others in Los Angeles.…”

“…. maybe one day go to university.” Jordan saw the trajectory to university as tiered, with the first step being to learn English: “Right now, I have to finish English school, go to high school, then college, but yeah, I would like to.” Such progression through education and language learning was not only meaningful for the mobility of individual unaccompanied, undocumented young adult workers, but it was tied to the broader community and future generations (Canizales 2015; Canizales and O’Connor forthcoming). Jordan illustrated this as he explained that his mobility had the potential “to change my culture.” He elaborated,What people have planted into my mind since I was little was that I cannot do it.…”

“…Many of today’s Latinx newcomers come of age in diverse household dynamics (Landale et al 2011) with precarious class and legal statuses (Massey, Durand, and Pren 2016) and complex educational and employment trajectories (Oropesa and Landale 2009). Indeed, the unprecedented rise of unaccompanied youth migration to the United States over the past decade has prompted researchers to investigate the diversification of transnational immigrant households, with children migrating to support left-behind adult parents and siblings (Canizales 2018; Heidbrink 2014, 2020); the tensions that emerge between school and work for migrant youth (Canizales n.d.; Diaz-Strong 2020; Martinez 2019); and youth’s own imagined futures in their transitions into adulthood (Canizales and O’Connor forthcoming). Existing findings point to undocumented youth workers’ tendencies to be absent from school upon arriving in the United States and possibilities for stagnant or downward incorporation, but we know very little about their school-going experiences and processes of educational meaning making during their transitions into adulthood.…”

“…U.S.-based educational institutions and researchers often assume that undocumented youth’s aspirations for social incorporation are embedded in the host society where they come of age. These studies situate undocumented immigrant youth’s incorporation within normative households, institutions, and imagined futures (Canizales and O’Connor forthcoming). This assumption has been critiqued in recent research that points to the diversity of immigrant youth’s family dynamics (Landale, Thomas, and Van Hook 2011) along with the relative inaccessibility of K–12 education (Canizales 2018; Diaz-Strong 2020, 2021) and the turn to work for unaccompanied youth (Canizales n.d.; Martinez 2019).…”

“…This assumption has been critiqued in recent research that points to the diversity of immigrant youth’s family dynamics (Landale, Thomas, and Van Hook 2011) along with the relative inaccessibility of K–12 education (Canizales 2018; Diaz-Strong 2020, 2021) and the turn to work for unaccompanied youth (Canizales n.d.; Martinez 2019). Researchers have examined how education and language learning can be reimagined to account for the maintenance of transnational life among undocumented newcomer youth and long-settled young adults, including those unaccompanied by a parent (Canizales and O’Connor forthcoming), noting the importance of maintaining native-language proficiency and promoting “translanguaging” (Bajaj and Bartlett 2017). Given the diversification of the newcomer immigrant youth population and the rise of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrant youth migration from Latin America over the past decade, this article advances our understanding of how Latinx immigrant youth define education and the role of education in their U.S. and transnational lives as they come of age.…”