For several decades, unauthorized immigration has been an ongoing issue for the United States. Currently, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Statistics estimates there are 11.4 million undocumented immigrants residing in the country and 7.9 million are coming from Mexico and Central America, Latinx zones. Latinx is a gender-neutral term used in place of Latino, Latina, or Latin@ for inclusivity of all intersecting Latin American identities (Ramirez & Blay, 2017). Many hide in the shadows, without legal work authorization, residency, and experience discrimination, exploitation, abuse, and permanent marginalization. Around 4 million undocumented immigrants have children under the age of 18 (Batalova & Zong, 2017). Of this group, 959,000 children are themselves unauthorized immigrants.
Nevertheless, immigration reform has been a hostile issue for the U.S. federal government and several policies have failed to initiate a political change. In the recent presidential election, the current U.S. President has stated his extreme support for the mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants. During his presidential campaign, he stated his plan for the construction of a wall on the Texas-Mexico border, costing the United States billions of dollars. Although, a recent non-partisan Texas poll delivered that 61% of Texans are opposed to its construction and only 35% are in favor, in order to decrease the number of undocumented immigrants from entering the country (Hensch, 2017).
In addition to being political, immigration is a growing controversy in the U.S. education system. As rising percentages of undocumented children enter the United States, they are legally required to attend public-schools, once present in the country. Under the 1982 Plyler v. Doe court decision, the United States requires all K-12 students living in the U.S. to receive a public-school education, regardless of their citizenship status (Galisky, 2009). Similar to their parents, undocumented Latinx immigrant students are suffering from anti-immigration policies. The policies that most directly affect undocumented Latinx immigrant youth are in the school system and relate to school discipline. Undocumented Latinx immigrant youth and U.S. born Latinx youth are becoming a part of the school-to-prison pipeline, a metaphor used to describe the harsh policies and tactics enforced in schools, targeting minority youth, to be pushed out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system. Policies include, though are not limited to physical restraint, suspension, expulsion, referral to law enforcement, arrest, etc. (Nance & Redfield, 2016). Undocumented Latinx immigrant youth are among the students most highly affected by the school-to-prison pipeline. These policies are affecting the overall population of the Latinx community that embody undocumented Latinx immigrant youth and Latinx youth who are U.S. citizens. Multiple factors Anti-immigration policies establish great barriers impacting the educational goals of Latinx youth, provoking extraordinary dropout and incarceration rates, an issue not being discussed today.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
It is difficult to disagree with the statement that students of color are ultimately receiving a second-class education. Black and Latinx youth are more likely to get arrested than their white peers and enter the juvenile justice system (Nance & Redfield, 2016). Studies have shown how students of color are disproportionately lower achievers and unable to read at basic or above [levels]; damaged by lower expectations and lack of engagement; retained in grade or excluded because of high [standardized] testing, subject to more frequent and harsher punishment, etc. (Nance & Redfield, 2016). Among these students of color are undocumented Latinx immigrant and Latinx youth, who are being criminalized and targeted due to their citizenship status or the color of their skin. Not only are they struggling with zero tolerance policies in their schools, they are ultimately receiving a second-class education. In many studies, Latinx youth are not being reviewed as their own general sub-group.
The purpose of this research is to explicitly shed light on the unique experiences of Latinx youth as they face daily challenges of immigration and education policy in the U.S. and more specifically in Boston, MA. Politics behind immigration in the United States create unlimited obstacles for undocumented students and their families, which this study will further analyze. Specifically, there are two distinct groups in the United States of Latinx youth: undocumented Latinx immigrant youth and Latinx youth with U.S. citizenship. This study will show how the portrayal of undocumented Latinx immigrant youth has a direct impact on Latinx youth that are born in the United States and will address the following research question:
To what extent has the criminalization of undocumented Latinx immigrant youth and U.S. born Latinx youth in the public-school system impacted these students’ educational goals in the U.S.?
As a Latina student and daughter of immigrants, I would like to explore the problem of the criminalization of Latinx youth, an issue being ignored by the United States education system. In summary, there is need to uncover the diverse layers of criminalization, immigration, and the education of Latinx youth. Particularly, the study has the following sub-objectives:
To provide a comprehensive review of sources and characteristics of the school-to-prison pipeline and its effects on undocumented Latinx immigrant youth and Latinx youth born in the U.S.
To review immigration policies being practiced in public-schools.
To review incarceration rates for undocumented Latinx immigrant youth and U.S. born Latinx youth during school age and Latinx youth graduation rates.
To analyze the importance of mentorships between school personnel and students as well as taking into consideration the socialization of Latinx youth through education, where xenophobia drives assimilation.
To outline established solutions that teachers, counselors, and administration may adopt in public-schools.
The long-term goal of the research is to develop a review of the literature available on Latinx youth and how schools have or have not adopted a set of solutions and/or possible methods for better assisting Latinx youth in graduating high school and achieving their educational goals. The first step in meeting this goal is to conduct a comprehensive review of research from the fields of education, sociology, and government to reveal the experiences of students in their school environment, as well as analyzing their “family structures, school involvement, socioeconomic status, school factors, such as free or reduced lunch, and geographic background (Peguero, 2011).â€
FRAMEWORK AND STANDPOINT
Coming from a Latinx immigrant family and as a student of the United States education system, I believe it is important to discuss the issues pertaining to today’s broken immigration system. Children of immigrants in the Latinx community are essentially receiving a second-class education. As one of the largest growing populations of the United States, their challenges should not remain unnoticed. We need to change the stigmatization of Latinx youth and educate school agents on the interrelated hardships that they are suffering in their homes and in current politics. A conversation needs to begin for the country to start recognizing its immigrant population.
Through my research, I will expand on the experiences of Latinx youth and undocumented Latinx youth by using the Latino/a Critical Race Theory to study the experiences of students in the Latinx community in the Boston area. For the purpose of this research, the Latino/a Critical Race Theory will be referred to as the Latinx Race Theory, an inclusive term of all Latinx intersecting identities. The Latinx Race Theory or the LatCrit theory is a framework used to uncover Latinx experiences in race, class, gender, and sexuality, while concurrently recognizing issues of immigration status, language, ethnicity and culture (Huber, 2010).
As previously indicated, research on the school-to-prison pipeline has predominantly elaborated on “the Black-white paradigm,†yet not elaborating on the Latinx perspective (Espinoza & Harris, 1997). The main objective of the LatCrit theory is to untangle the multiple components of institutional discrimination that affect the Latinx community (Gonzalez & Portillos, 2007). Educational researches such as Daniel Solorzano and Tara Yosso have distinguished five principles that encompass the Critical Race Theory framework in education, from which LatCrit theory was born:
To center the research focus on race, racism, and the intersections of multiple forms of oppression;
To challenge dominant ideologies embedded in educational theory and practice;
To recognize the significance of experiential knowledge and utilize this knowledge in our research;
To utilize interdisciplinary perspectives and;
To guide our work with a commitment to racial and social justice (Solorzano & Yosso, 2001).
In other words, the Critical Race Theory is used to disclose the experiences of People of Color. The LatCrit theory is a branch of the Critical Race Theory, which include the aforementioned principles, however LatCrit clearly addresses issues that are specific to Latinx populations. LatCrit covers areas of “historical and institutional racism, sexism, classism, cultural and linguistic devaluation, legal criminalization of undocumented immigrants, and racial profiling based primarily on phenotype†(Solorzano & Yosso, 2001).
For example, Solorzano and Delgado Bernal explain both the discrimination and oppression that the Latinx community encounter among the oppressive White dominant ideology in their schools and communities. For instance, when Latinx students are prohibited from speaking Spanish in their schools by school administrators, it makes them feel secondary to the dominant ideology due to their culture and ethnicity. In today’s academia, the Latinx perspective is often overlooked and researchers ignore their cultural and geographical differences in comparison to other communities of color. In this research, I will use the LatCrit theory to examine the controversies at play for Latinx youth in the system of education in the United States.