Immigrant Children in Arizona: Straddling Borders and Identities

• In Event: 51.078 - MTCC Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: 51.078-2 - Foregrounding Children's Views and Voices in Critical Times

Abstract

Context and research questions
Arizona has long seen anti-immigrant policies that violate human rights, including orchestrated tactics to generate a public spectacle and symbolic war against “illegal immigration.” An outcome of this hostile environment has been a displaced community, traumatized under the incessant threat of deportation, criminalization, and separation. Despite community resistance and resiliency, not much is known about the impact these and new national policies are having on children of immigrant families. Based on conversational interviews with children, we apply Border Crit Theory (Maldonado, 2013) as a theoretical framework to contextualize and explore: What does it mean to be an immigrant child in Arizona? How are identities and imagined futures impacted?

Methods
Activity-based conversational interviews were conducted in English and Spanish with 26 children. In these interviews, conducted in school, home and community-based settings, children were prompted to draw pictures and discuss four broad areas; family, school, community, and visions of their future.

Theoretical Framework
We build on research that foregrounds younger people’s views (e.g. Pérez., Medellin, & Rideaux, 2016; Lundy & Author, 2015; Author, Author & Author, 2012; McGrath, McGrath, Parson, Saitta, Swan, & Smith, 2008; Saballa, MacNaughton, & Smith, 2008; MacNaughton, Smith & Davis, 2007). These projects highlight the ways young children can tell adults about their lives and experiences and the concerns that they have for people close to them and for their immediate environment. We apply Border Crit Theory (Maldonado, 2013), which affirms the need to explore the socio-political and racialized systems at play when conducting research in and with border communities and related ethical considerations. The complex nature of acknowledging children's rights to participation stirs debate and begs the question, what does it take to position children within discourses of research and policy affecting them?

Conclusions
Through our conversations with children we discovered child generated theories and perspectives regarding identity, migration, notions of home, belonging, race, citizenship, status, bilingualism, family, community, neighborhood, education, schooling, friendship, and altruistic desires for the future. We see their narratives as theories of resiliency and resistance through existence and draw implications for social justice practices by teachers and others working with young immigrant children.

There are significant implications in misrepresenting immigrant communities. Researchers must be careful not to narrate a simplified understanding of children’s lives without situating and layering their experiences within the geographic and socio-political contexts they navigate. Ethical issues that arise in doing research with children living in the borderlands are addressed; some face depression, fear, and trauma from their legal status, separation from one or more family members due to deportation or incarceration, language barriers, discrimination, and/or poverty.

Scholarly Significance
We add to the literature on ethics related to working with children - particularly those in challenging circumstances and in vulnerable - and resilient - families and communities. The border region is a symbolic site of oppression that is often exploited through narratives that further harm already vulnerable people. We wish to highlight the special dynamics and the ethical responsibilities that come with efforts to foreground children’s voices and decolonize research.

Authors

• Angeles Judith Maldonado, The Institute for Border Crit Theory

• Beth Blue Swadener, Arizona State University