Lives in limbo : undocumented and coming of age in America / Roberto G. Gonzales ; with a foreword by Jose Antonio Vargas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gonzales, Roberto G., 1969- author.

Contributor:

Vargas, Jose Antonio, writer of introduction.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Children of noncitizens--United States--Social conditions.

Children of noncitizens.

Children of noncitizens--United States--Education.

Illegal immigration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (318 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California : University of California Press, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"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:

Chapter 1. Contested Membership over Time

Chapter 2. Undocumented Young Adults in Los Angeles: College-Goers and Early Exiters

Chapter 3. Childhood: Inclusion and Belonging

Chapter 4. School as a Site of Belonging and Conflict

Chapter 5. Adolescence: Beginning the Transition to Illegality

Chapter 6. Early Exiters: Learning to Live on the Margins

Chapter 7. College-Goers: Managing the Distance between Aspirations and Reality

Chapter 8. Adulthood: How Immigration Status Becomes a Master Status

Chapter 9. Conclusion: Managing Lives in Limbo.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520962415

0520962419

OCLC:

1102805786