Marking Legal Status: Addressing Belonging, Documentation Issues, and Undocumented Students in High School

• In Event: 77.049 - Undocumented and DACAmented in the Trump Era

Abstract

Of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, over one million are under the age of 18. Despite having educational rights, many undocumented youth live in poverty and attend schools that are often underfunded, underperforming, and lack the knowledge to support their needs. An emerging body of work has highlighted the experiences of undocumented college students; however, the literature on undocumented youth in the K-12 public education system is limited. Through a yearlong ethnography at a California public high school, this study had two goals: (1) understand how legal status emerges and is talked about in a high school context, and, (2) explore the ways schools challenge and critique “illegality” and the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants.

Author

• Marco A Murillo, Santa Clara University