Vidas al Revés /Upside-Down Lives: Educational Challenges Faced by Transnational Children of Return Mexican Families

ABSTRACT

Drastic immigration policies and economic conditions have resulted in unparalleled return rates to Mexico. Deported parents are faced with the difficult choice of leaving US-born children behind or taking them to their country of origin, where many face significant educational, cultural, and linguistic barriers. This study focuses on six families and the challenges they have faced living with undocumented status in the US, re-adjusting to life in Mexico, and the educational challenges faced by their children in both countries.

KEY WORDS:

• Bilingual education
• Latino/a children and families
• migration/trans-nationalism
• parent and community
• second language acquisition
• teacher preparation

Notes

¹ DACA refers for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an immigration policy, passed in 2012, which allows certain undocumented persons who entered the country before their sixteenth birthday and before June 2007 to receive a renewable, two-year work permit and temporary exemption from deportation.

² Telesecundarias: A system of televised lessons and distance education programs for middle and high school students created by the government of Mexico and available in many rural areas of the country.