Legal Power in Action: How Latinx Adult Children Mitigate the Effects of Parents’ Legal Status through Brokering

• In Event: 1464 - Immigrant Communities/Families

Abstract

Immigration scholars have long demonstrated that Latinx children engage in cultural and linguistic brokering on behalf of their immigrant parents. In this article, I add to this literature by examining how and when adult children deploy their legal power on behalf to assist their immigrant parents. This study identifies three types of brokering using legal power, including securing loans or access to credit, sponsoring immigration petitions, and becoming a legal guardian for siblings. Using 37 in-depth interviews with adult children, parents, and extended family members with varying legal statuses in California, I show that adult citizen children have greater capacity than DACAmented children in mixed-status families to exercise legal power when brokering. Yet, adult children’s legal power may be enhanced or limited by laws, family tensions, and economic background. These findings provide an understanding on how adult children in mixed-status families negotiate the effects of immigration laws and can reduce some inequality suffered by their families.

Author

• Isabel Garcia Valdivia, University of California Berkeley