Dear Prima: Letters From Students in a Mixed-Status Family in New York City

• In Event: Equity Across the Border: Reimagining Mexican Teacher Preparation to Meet the Needs of Transnational Students

Abstract

The Mexico-US border has not only separated territories, but also blocked certain people from crossing from one side to the other. Yet migrants have been moving between these two countries since the border was first demarcated. This includes children and youth navigating these geo-political borders, as well as borders created by national and local education systems (Gándara & Jensen, 2021). For the benefit of educators in Mexico who may be more accustomed to sending students abroad rather than receiving them from the U.S., this paper sets out the ways Mexican-origin students in the US experience schools.

Many transbordered families are simultaneously unified and separated by policies that prohibit them from living their lives freely between the United States, Mexico, and beyond (Suárez-Orozco, 2019). This physical separation between loved ones makes connections difficult, but not impossible. This paper looks into how one fictionalized family maintains ties across borders between school-aged cousins, with a focus on sharing educational experiences in New York City public schools. The communication is done in the style of the children’s books “Dear Abuelo” by Grecia Huasca and “Dear Primo” by Duncan Tonatiuh where children in the US write letters to their family members in Mexico and, in the latter, also receive letters in return.

The paper uses the “non-fiction fiction” approach to bring together the range of experience of immigrant-origin youth in a mixed-status family, building on the experiences of the co-authors as elementary bilingual teachers, teacher educators, immigrants, and advocates in New York City to capture the realities of schooling and family life for those with different political citizenship statuses and in different educational models that are primarily designed for emergent bilingual students.

The resulting letters from transborder students in the US to their prima (cousin) show how within one city and one family there can be such varied educational experiences among immigrant-origin students. Each child attends a school with a different type of program – dual language bilingual, English as a New Language (ENL), and newcomer/immigrant – that supports their overall education and specifically their bilingualism and biliteracy development in different ways. The letters also show that students have a lot to share not only with family members who may be across borders, but with their teachers too. Teachers must create spaces for students to share their educational experiences and then build off of their strengths and provide support as they are needed. This is certainly not easy, but necessary to ensure students are set up for success regardless of where their transbordered lives take them.

This paper is one step in creating an awareness among educators that transborder students are part of the Mexican school system. It sets the stage for greater understanding about how they arrive in Mexico and requires educators across borders to conceptualize their students' lives and education as binational and even global.

Authors

• Tatyana Kleyn, City College of New York - CUNY

• Kellie Griffith, New York City Department of Education

• Irving Mota, Teachers College, Columbia University