Understanding School and Interethnic Relations of Mexican Immigrant Youth

• In Event: 69.057 - Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: 69.057-13 - Youth Experiences With Settler Colonial Schooling

Abstract

How immigrant groups understand minority groups in the United States, in particular, African-Americans is scarce in the literature. Fifteen qualitative interviews with Mexican immigrants between the ages of 18-23, stratified by gender, schooling & immigration status, in a neighborhood in the northeast U.S. that had been the site of eleven anti-bias attacks. Research questions focused on: 1) Mexican immigrant youth understandings of race, and how they understand interethnic relations with African-Americans? 2) the role of schooling in the shaping of those understandings and experiences? Using thematic analysis, the author found that more formal schooling increased respondents’ linguistic capacity to discuss interethnic relations; less schooling resulted in avoidance of race and interethnic talk. Implications for trust building in schools is discussed.

Author

• Roberto Martinez, Brooklyn College