Black Immigrant-Origin Youth and K–12 Educational Contexts

• In Event: Reclaiming Narratives of Healing and Love for Black Youth Amid Racial Trauma in K–12 Schools: An Intersectional Lens

Abstract

Dr. Smith’s research examines the role of social (e.g., social relationships) and cultural (e.g., racial discrimination) risks, assets, and resources in the development of Black children and youth with a special focus on immigrant-origin youth. Her work uses strengths-based, anti-racist theorizing to combat the erasure of heterogeneity in Black communities (Volpe, Smith, et al., 2022) and consider intersectionality in the context of Black youth (Galán, Auguste, Smith, & Meza, 2022). She will facilitate a small group dialogue on Black immigrant-origin youth (foreign-born or children of immigrants) in K-12 educational contexts. One in five Black people in the United States are of immigrant-origin, and by 2060 it is projected that Black immigrants will comprise a third of the overall Black population in the U.S. (Tamir, 2022). However, the racialized experiences of this small but growing hidden population are less well understood. Black immigrant-origin youth in schools face many of the risks for racial trauma faced by Black Americans (e.g., racial discrimination) while also contending with xenophobia and being less likely to have the supports to buffer these stressors (e.g., familial preparation for racial bias; Agi & Rivas-Drake, 2021). This facilitated dialogue will explore how Black immigrant youth experience racial trauma in K-12 schools and consider how to reconstruct homeplaces and advance healing within and outside of K-12 schools for Black immigrant youth amid racial traumas.

Author

• Naila A. Smith, University of Virginia