What is the relationship among migration, education, and socio-emotional well-being? This article draws on ethnographic research with Dominican youth to examine the impact of maternal migration on young immigrants and their educational aspirations. We detail how the youth come to conflate mother love, the sacrifices of migration, and educational investment. We argue that this conflation represents a "cruel optimism" (Berlant 2011), wherein the impossible object of desire-social mobility through schooling-impedes well-being. [Schooling, Dominican, socio-emotional well-being, maternal migration, affect theory] ¿Cuál es la relación entre la migración, la educación y el bienestar socio-emocional? A partir de una investigación etnográfica con jóvenes dominicanos en Nueva York, este estudio examina el impacto de la migración materna sobre los jóvenes inmigrantes, y sus aspiraciones educativas. En éste detallamos cómo los jóvenes llegan a confundir el amor materno, los sacrificios de la migración y la inversión educativa que ellos mismos hacen para cumplir sus expectativas y las de sus madres. Argumentamos que esta confluencia representa una forma de "optimismo cruel" (Berlant 2011), en la que el objeto imposible del deseo-la movilidad social a través de la educación-impide su propio bienestar.

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Racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity continues to increase in classrooms. Many call for a more diverse curriculum, but curricular diversity brings its own challenges to both teachers and students. These three vignettes are drawn from my ethnographic data at Atlantic High School in Brooklyn, New York, where I worked for ten years as an English teacher and collected data for two years as a doctoral student.

This forum reviews a mix of resources (written texts, graphic novels, documentaries, and mixed‐media pieces) to inform pedagogy and related educational practices that foreground representations of youths and their literacy practices within and outside of school.

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