Wanting to Leave, Needing to Stay: Issues for Undocumented Mothers With Children With Disabilities

• In Event: 79.044 - Education in the Trump Era at the Intersections of Latinidad y Discapacidad: Unraveling and Resisting the Ideological Braid of Neoliberalism and Nationalism

Abstract

Objectives
This paper will present the reasons why undocumented mothers continue to risk their safety and choose to stay in the US in order to meet the health, educational and social needs of their children with dis/abilities, some of which are citizens of the United States.

Theoretical framework
Through the use testimonios (Acevedo, 2001; Beverley, 2009; Huber, 2009), the sacrifices that mothers make in order to stay in country will be shared. Using an intersectional framework incorporating linguistic human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1997) and discrit (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013), this paper will also present the ways in which monolingual special education placements influence the decision to stay as well as the ways fear of deportation impacts a family’s relationship with a school.

Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The paper uses qualitative data from an ethnographic study of Spanish-speaking Latinx mothers and their emergent bilingual children who are labeled as disabled (EBLADs). The study was conducted within one immigrant community and was enacted in two phases. In the first phase, ten participants engaged in multiple interviews. As part of their participation, mothers engaged in one semi-structured interview to collect their and their families’ demographic data and one open-ended interview which covered topics grounded in disability, language and motherhood. For the second phase, three of the ten participants were chosen for ethnographic case studies. This phase consisted of at least four additional interviews which were open-ended and narrative based. In addition, the case studies required multiple home observations and a collection of relevant artifacts.

Data sources
Data for this study was gathered over a period of six months. As a result, 50 hours of interview data was collected, primarily in Spanish. The data was then transcribed by a third-party, then analyzed with both inductive and deductive codes using an online platform. Lastly, the researcher translated the data as needed.

Significance
Understanding why families continue to endure ongoing indignities at the hands of the current political administration will help us to understand not only how to better serve these students and their families within public schools in the United States but will also bring to light the ways in which educational policy makers and researchers can advocate for, develop and support appropriate educational systems in Latin American countries of origin. Engaging in this kind of global social justice work will ensure that the needs of EBLAD students will continue to be met regardless of their location or their parents’ immigration status.

Author

• María Cioè-Peña, Montclair State University