"If Only I Didn't Have That Label": Foregrounding Self-Positioning and Intersectionality in Immigrant and Refugee Experiences

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: Refugee Youth Experiences in Education

Abstract

This paper bridges an intersectionality framework with multicultural education scholars’ calls to flexibility in conceptualizing culture and identity among youth, to bring forth the intricacies of the migration experience among comparatively understudied immigrant and refugee youth. Two pervasive themes emerged: 1) the dynamic nature of identity positions whose intersections makes the youth’s adaptation irreducibly nuanced and 2) the youth’s need for self-definition in the process of adaptation. Racial and ethnic positioning, national origin, class, legal status and religion intersected in these young people’s lives in important ways but they did not seem to fulfill the same role across cases. Attention to how they intersect offers insight into the importance of both structural and context-based examinations of immigrant youth positioning.

Author

• Ramona M. Fruja, Bucknell University