Master Status or Agentic Pathways:Family, Gender, and Legal Status among Undocumented Youths in Contingent Migration Contexts

• In Event: 2384 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 03. DACA and Undocumented Youth

Abstract

Understanding of undocumented youths’ coming of age has centered on their immigration status becoming a master status as they age into adulthood (Gonzales 2016). In this formulation, no matter the educational path of undocumented youths, immigration status trumps other social factors in shaping youths’ social lives. The narratives presented here, drawn from multisited longitudinal ethnography with undocumented youths as they transitioned from adolescence to adulthood in New York City, highlight how family, gender, and legal status shape outcomes outside the scope of master status theory. Transnational resources enable geographic mobility and access to legal protections enables social mobility. Gendered roles and performances limit Alma’s and Aracelis’ private lives while offering possibilities for gaining legal status. Alma in particular uses help-seeking orientation, close mentoring relationships with educators, and gendered protections to gain legal status. For brother Luis and Leo, masculine roles and performances with family members, in classrooms, and with peers constrain changes in legal status, though in different ways. Leo drives towards a typical outcome, working for obligations in his family of destination and of origin. Luis returns to Mexico, where he holds citizenship, to make good on an international immigrant bargain. These richly contextualized narratives thus draw attention to gender and family dynamics as relevant to a more limited scope of master status theory for undocumented youths.

Author

• Stephen P. Ruszczyk, Montclair State University