Lives in Limbo undocumented and coming of age in America

• Main Author: Gonzales, Roberto G
• Format: eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Berkeley University of California Press 2015
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Children of illegal aliens; Children of noncitizens; Education; Illegal immigration; Social conditions; Social Science; Sociology; United States
• ISBN: 0520962419; 0520287258; 9780520962415; 0520287266; 9780520287266; 9780520287259

"My world seems upside down. I have grown up but I feel like I'm moving backward. And I can't do anything about it." -EsperanzaOver two million of the nation's eleven million undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States since childhood. Due to a broken immigration system, they grow up to uncertain futures. InLives in Limbo,Roberto G. Gonzales introduces us to two groups: the college-goers, like Ricardo, who had good grades and a strong network of community support that propelled him to college and DREAM Act organizing but still landed in a factory job a few short years after graduation, and the early-exiters, like Gabriel, who failed to make meaningful connections in high school and started navigating dead-end jobs, immigration checkpoints, and a world narrowly circumscribed by legal limitations. This vivid ethnography explores why highly educated undocumented youth share similar work and life outcomes with their less-educated peers, despite the fact that higher education is touted as the path to integration and success in America. Mining the results of an extraordinary twelve-year study that followed 150 undocumented young adults in Los Angeles,Lives in Limboexposes the failures of a system that integrates children into K-12 schools but ultimately denies them the rewards of their labor.