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“Too Bad I’m Not an Obvious Citizen”: The effects of racialized US immigration enforcement practices on second-generation Mexican youth

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Abstract

Over the last two decades, border residents have come under increased surveillance during stepped-up policing of the US-Mexico border. Second-generation Mexican youth – the US born children of immigrants – should be insulated from mistreatment by immigration officials. However, racialized immigration enforcement practices target these teenagers who are coming of age in this borderland milieu. Drawing from extensive fieldwork conducted with 54 teenagers in San Diego, this article describes how immigration enforcement practices reinforce a racialized form of belonging that has negative effects on youth, but also highlights how these youth deploy strategies of resistance to contest them.

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Notes

  1. All names of people and places are pseudonyms used to protect the anonymity of research participants.

  2. The second generation is comprised of those who were born in the United States to immigrant parents. The term 1.5 generation refers to children born abroad but educated (partially or completely) in the United States. Hereafter, I refer to both 1.5- and second-generation youth by the label second generation. I use the label Mexican because most of the teens in my study most frequently self-identified as such. The teens’ predominant use of the label Mexican is significant in that it encompasses all the people of Mexican descent in their lives, regardless of immigration status.

  3. By stating that second-generation youth are entitled to these rights and protections as US citizens, I am not suggesting that undocumented immigrants should be excluded from them. Indeed as Dunn (2010, 10) argues, an overriding focus on citizenship and national sovereignty at the border obscures the human rights, well-being and dignity of non-citizens. Given that my research participants were largely citizens, though, the purpose of the article is to demonstrate the effects of border policing policies and practices on US citizens of Mexican descent in addition to their undocumented friends and family members.

  4. Forty-two of these teens were high school students, while the remaining 12 were college students who were in high school when I met them in 2004. In this article, I identify the teens by the age that they were during my primary period of research in 2005–2006.

  5. Freelisting is a technique in which a concept is introduced and participants generate lists of words that they associate with that concept. I conducted freelisting as a means of understanding how the teens understood concepts such as citizenship, immigrant and citizen. Photovoice is a technique where community members photographically document their everyday life conditions in order to promote critical dialogue about issues of concern to the community (Wang and Burris, 1994, 171).

  6. According to Heyman (1998, 166), the term cotidianidad was coined by the Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). AFSC is a Quaker-founded human rights organization that promotes social justice throughout the world. I conducted my Master’s research with AFSC’s US-Mexico Border Program in San Diego in 2000.

  7. Though Lugo (2000) critiques the use of the academic and theoretical phrase “border crossing,” I use this terminology because it is, in fact, the way that many borderland residents refer to it.

  8. The teens reported these reasons for going to Mexico and the frequency with which they participated in these transnational activities in the survey. I also recorded in my notes during fieldwork reasons for going to Mexico as they became evident.

  9. When speaking English, the teens (and other locals) refer to Tijuana simply as T.J.

  10. San Ysidro and Otay Mesa are the two largest ports of entry in San Diego County. California has a total of 20 ports of entry, including airports.

  11. La migra is the colloquial term in Spanish used to refer to Border Patrol or other uniformed CBP or ICE officers.

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  1. University of New Mexico, New Mexico

    Christina M Getrich

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Getrich, C. “Too Bad I’m Not an Obvious Citizen”: The effects of racialized US immigration enforcement practices on second-generation Mexican youth. Lat Stud 11, 462–482 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2013.28

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