“To Me, It’s Not about Immigration Status”: Divergent Perceptions of Legal Status among Undocumented College Students

ABSTRACT

Prior research about undocumented college students detailed structural barriers and derailed academic trajectories. However, education access policies in states like California have lowered barriers and increased enrollment. Research has presumed that undocumented students all view their legal status as a barrier which may now be more complex given changes in the policy landscape. I draw upon interviews with 30 students enrolled in a University of California campus to analyze how undocumented students perceived the extent to which legal status shaped their academic experiences. I argue that divergent perceptions were shaped by immigration policies, exposure to prevalent narratives, and the extent to which immigration status seemed consequential in students’ experiences and identified three types: 1) students with disassociated perceptions ascribed to meritocratic views about academic success and did not consider their legal status a salient barrier; 2) students with dynamic perceptions demonstrated how perceptions can shift through an increased awareness of inequality following experiences with barriers and immigration policy changes; and 3) students with perceptions informed by an awareness of power understood that inequities are produced alongside multiple marginalized social locations. Importantly, perceptions informed by an awareness of power translated to navigational strategies with increased access to academic and socioemotional support.

KEYWORDS:

• Undocumented students
• post-secondary education
• illegality
• academic experiences
• qualitative research
• legal issues

Acknowledgments

I thank Laura E. Enriquez and the anonymous reviewers for comments on previous drafts. Special thanks to participants who shared their experiences, community partners, Undocumented Student Equity Project collaborators (Dr. Laura E. Enriquez, Dr. Edelina Burciaga, Miroslava Guzman Perez, Martha Morales Hernandez, and Daisy Vazquez Vera) and research assistants (Tadria Cardenas, Yareli Castro, Maria Mireles, and Estela Ramirez Ramirez).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by the UC Irvine School of Social Sciences, UC Irvine Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, and the UC San Diego California Immigration Research Initiative.