https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0836-7611
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ABSTRACT
This piece explores the resistance strategies of Latina mothers grappling with racism and legal precarity in suburban Atlanta, Georgia, a “hostile” new destination with restrictive anti-immigrant measures. It draws on 18 months of ethnographic research to show how women derived a sense of empowerment from becoming involved in their children's schooling. They also turned schools into “counter-spaces” of sanctuary and support for fellow Latinx parents. The author sees this educational activism spanning both domestic and public school spaces as an expression of m(other)work. M(other)work is the gendered labor of care that supports Latinx children and communities as they fight against intersecting forms of exclusion. This labor, stemming from traumatic experiences of border crossing, is at the heart of emerging forms of immigrant activism in new destinations. In conclusion, the author urges educators to abandon traditional deficit framings of immigrant groups in favor of initiatives that support Latina mothers’ educational activism.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Magdalena Suerbaum and Laurie Lijnders for the care and enthusiasm they have devoted to editing this Special Issue, supporting authors at every stage of the review process. Thank you to the three anonymous reviewers for providing thorough feedback on the paper. A special thank you goes to my research interlocutors in Atlanta, for welcoming me into their worlds and trusting me to share their stories.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Pseudonyms are used to ensure participants’ confidentiality. Names of places and other identifiers have also been removed.
2 I use the term Latina to reflect my interlocutors’ own self-identification and recognize the gendered nature of their reproductive and care labor. However, I employ the gender-inclusive term Latinx when referring more broadly to the experiences of US Latino/a populations.
3 However, see Márquez (Citation2019) for how this term elides the experiences of Afro-Latinxs and persisting legacies of Jim Crow in the US South.
4 With 287(g), the Department of Homeland Security entrusts certain state and local law enforcement authorities to act as federal immigration agents (“The Citation287(g) Program” Citation2012). Secure Communities is designed to facilitate the identification of people held in US jails who are deportable under immigration law (“Secure Communities” Citation2011).
5 Along with H.B.87, other laws contributed to unleashing a new era of anti-immigrant policing in Georgia, namely S.B.170, which prohibited undocumented migrants from obtaining a driver license; and S.B. 350, which criminalized minor traffic offenses. Georgia’s H.B. 87 also required businesses with more than ten employees to check if their employees are eligible to work legally in the United States, thus limiting job opportunities for many of my interlocutors.
6 Both this manuscript and the publication “Speaking Up, Rising Above” (Lanari Citation2022a) are drawn from the same set of participant data and the same field research.
7 Interviews conducted in Spanish were translated for the purpose of citation in the text.
8 Signed by Obama in 2012 and reinstated in 2020 after coming under attack during the Trump presidency, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) grants temporary legal status and protection from deportation to certain categories of undocumented migrants who came to the US as children.
9 These claims are supported by interviews conducted with one city councilor and with white parents who took part in the redistricting meetings. According to a recent study by the Urban Institute (Citation2021) the boundaries between the attendance zones of the two schools are among the most racially unequal in Atlanta.
10 While the community is majority-white, 72% of its public school students are from minority backgrounds.
11 The source of the quote has been removed to ensure confidentiality.
12 Akin to school boards, school governance councils include teachers, parents, and community members and serve an advisory function related to the school’s management. This example is especially significant given the role that school boards often play in delegitimizing migrant parents and excluding them from decision-making processes (Manzo and Deeb-Sossa Citation2018).