Mixed‐Status Siblings Now in Mexico: How U.S. Documentation and Transborder Experiences Shape Pathways across Borders

Abstract

Drawing from an ethnographic study with mixed-status siblings who relocated from the United States to Mexico, I argue that access to U.S. papers continues to shape young people's educational lives beyond U.S. borders. Findings illustrate how U.S. passport privileges as well as young people's crossing of national, institutional, and linguistic borders shape how they navigate their migration and educational experiences within and across the transnational contexts of their lives.

“Where We Are Within That”: Chuj Sovereignty and Belonging Across Overlapping Settler Borders

“…The transnational research design outlined above was informed by decolonial feminist and border theories, which view physical, social, cultural, and epistemological borders as important sites of knowledge, theory‐making, and decolonial resistance (Anzaldúa 1987). Thus, this work is built on the view of Chuj youth as transborder thinkers (Dyrness and Sepúlveda 2020; Gallo 2022). Decolonial scholars argue that border thinking, or the knowledge that is produced at the intersections and borders of coloniality by subaltern peoples, provides a critical reflection on our current system and holds decolonial possibilities (Anzaldúa 1987; Mignolo 2000).…”

Dirty care in the transfronterizo experience: Walking with Mexicali/Calexico teachers through their youth

“…In harsh response, the United States has legislated heightened militarization in the Borderlands through increased border security to diminish the entry of men, women, and children from Mexico seeking opportunities in the north (Mora Vázquez, Trejo Guzmán, and Crosnoe, 2020). Border security initiatives have therefore made it crucial that border crossers know how to navigate passport checkpoints as well as the entire journey of going to and from the border (Gallo, 2021) because there is “no tolerance for ambiguity” (Lugo, 2000, 358). Not having the appropriate papers carries significant consequences, including “incarceration, physical violence, and even death” (Nuñez and Urrieta, 2021, 10).…”

“…As shown in Claudia's story, transfronterizo students were often charged with caring for younger siblings on their way to school. One's relationship to siblings can be a formative aspect of identity development (Edwards et al, 2006; Gallo, 2021), notably in Mexican‐origin sibling relations (Gallo, 2021; Padilla et al, 2021). For Claudia, Luis, and Andrea, getting their siblings safely to school involved keeping their own fears in check to care for them.…”

“…Representing the other end of the spectrum of concerns in the present inquiry, research on the transfronterizo experience has focused on students' identity (Cervantes‐Soon, 2017; O'Connor, 2019; Relaño Pastor, 2007), home and school connections (De la Piedra, Araujo, and Esquinca, 2018; Gallo and Link, 2015; O'Connor, 2018), language and literacy practices (Bach, 2020; De la Piedra and Guerra, 2012; Dutro and Haberl, 2018; Nuñez and Urrieta, 2021; O'Donnell, 2022), and the role of United States immigration documentation in shaping the education, employment, and migration decisions of young people (Gallo, 2021). These studies highlight the skill sets and cultural knowledge that transfronterizo students adopt or adapt as border crossers, the aptitudes they bring to academic activities, and how their language capabilities affect their success in United States schools.…”

Toward Border‐Crossing Biliteracies: Pláticas of Midwest Transnational Latinx Families Reading and (Re)writing the World

“…As such, these families often take risks and make critical decisions that come with movement across national borderlines. Such as experiencing changes in citizenship in one country to being mixed‐status—“members who reside in the U.S. without legal resident status as well as other members who are U.S. citizens” (Gallo, 2022, p. 48)—when moving to the United States. However, even mixed‐status families facing rigid nationalistic policies push against these boundaries by defining their identities with fluid understandings of belonging like using Mexican American or Chicano/a to symbolize their plural and border‐crossing identities.…”