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In this article, I add to the critique of the myth of the American Dream by examining ethnographically the ways its dominant discourse is circulated to Khmer American middle school children of migratory agricultural workers. Drawing on social theories of discourse, I juxtapose the ideology embedded in the American Dream Discourse with the complexities of urban immigrant life. By looking at four Khmer students' worldviews and experiences, I provide a nuanced analysis of the complexities involved in the students' responses to the Discourse. The findings challenge the notion of meritocracy and suggest that educators need to investigate their role in supporting and promoting student agency. [Khmer American (Cambodian), Discourse, urban education, immigrant student populations]

In our rapidly changing global culture, students' social worlds are becoming increasingly multilingual and multimodal, yet school practices do not often reflect the complexities or diversity of students' literacy and language practices. Valuing students' experiences with language and culture is important in creating supportive learning environments. This is true for all learners, but perhaps particularly so for immigrant students. This article presents the use of inquiry‐based projects as one pedagogical practice that can support students' literacy and language, create supportive classroom environments, and provide an avenue for teachers to learn more about the social worlds of their students. In particular, it describes how the use of inquiry‐based projects with middle school‐aged children of migratory agricultural workers served as a small space for some of the students to address feelings of loss of home and country. For others, the project served as a way to make sense of their new American identities. Important for this discussion is the notion that when students are allowed to bring in the literacy and language practices they engage in naturally in their social worlds, it is possible to broaden the monolingual and one‐dimensional nature of our curricula and create multilevel literacy communities within the classroom.

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Purpose In September 2014, 1,200 unaccompanied immigrant youth, from a region of Central America known for high rates of violence and homicide, enrolled in a suburban school district of New York State. This paper aims to highlight the stories of the newly arrived Central American high school youth, as told through Bilingual (Spanish/English) digital testimonios completed in the English Language Arts classroom. The author examines how the telling of their stories of surviving migration offers a way for the youth to respond to political and emotional struggles. The author also explores how the youth become active participants in the telling of political narratives/testimonios. Design/methodology/approach Part of a larger ethnographic case study, the author adopts the ethnographic approaches of the new literacy studies. Testimonios as a research epistemology privilege the youth’s narratives as sources of knowledge, and allow the youth to reclaim their authority in telling their own stories. Findings The integration of critical digital texts into the English Language Arts classroom created a participatory classroom culture where the Central American youth’s digital testimonios can be seen as a shared history of struggles that make visible the physical toil of their journeys, the truth of their border crossings and their enactments of political identities. As a collective, the youth’s stories become part of national and global political dialogues. Originality/value At a time when immigrant youth struggle for rights, to further their education and to negotiate the daily experiences of living in a new country, this research offers a unique perspective on the politics of inclusion and exclusion for unaccompanied youth.