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Todo es Diferente en la Frontera: Mixed-Status Familism in the Texas Border Strip

Rethinking Young People’s Lives Through Space and Place

ISBN: 978-1-78973-340-2, eISBN: 978-1-78973-339-6

Publication date: 10 June 2020

Abstract

Coming of age in the United States as an undocumented immigrant alters traditional rites of passage such as “completing school, moving out of the parental home, establishing employment, getting married, and becoming a parent” (Gonzales, 2011, p. 604). Yet, the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in 2012 began to reconcile some aspects in the life, educational, and occupational trajectories of nearly 800,000 youths. It is in the context of moving out the parental home or relocating that this chapter explores the decisions or processes that DACA beneficiaries encounter. Considering how “illegality,” place, and family impact the individual, this chapter demonstrates how different immigration statuses, attitudes, behaviours, and structures disparately, yet unequivocally, continue to frame coming of age processes. Drawing from seven interviews with undocumented Mexican youth benefiting from DACA along the Texas–Mexico border, this chapter introduces the term mixed-status familism. Mixed-status familism provides a nuanced approach to understand the ways in which the mixed-status nature of a family, their attitudes, behaviours, structures, and the place in which they reside continue to frame newly obtained individual opportunities in general and transitions to adulthood like relocating in specific. While most literature points to the benefits that DACA has provided for individuals and a few explore how these have transferred to the family, this chapter captures how family buffers both the impact of an undocumented status and the benefits of a temporary legal protection.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the comments of previous drafts and ongoing engagement from Stephany Cuevas. I am also thankful for the initial feedback from a couple of my respondents and that of two other DACA recipients from the Texas Border Strip. Finally, I wish to also acknowledge the instructive comments from Roberto G. Gonzales, Milena A. Melo, Gaby Hernandez, Lori Flores, and graduate students during the 2019 Stony Brook HGSE Graduate Conference on “Movement and Migration.” I wish to also acknowledge the reviewers and the editor of this volume for their support and encouraging feedback.

Citation

Aguilar, C. (2020), "Todo es Diferente en la Frontera: Mixed-Status Familism in the Texas Border Strip", Sriskandarajah, A. and Bass, L.E. (Ed.) Rethinking Young People’s Lives Through Space and Place (Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, Vol. 26), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 27-44. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120200000026003

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited