Youth Held at the Border

Illegal. Undocumented. Remedial. DREAMers. All of these labels have been applied to immigrant youth. Using a combination of engaging narrative and rigorous analysis, this book explores how immigrant youth are included in, and excluded from, various sectors of American society, including education. Instead of the land of opportunity, immigrant youth often encounter myriad new borders long after their physical journey to the United States is over. With an intimate storytelling style, the author invites readers to rethink assumptions about immigrant youth and what their often liminal positions reveal about the politics of inclusion in America.

Book Features:

• Engaging case studies that capture the lived experiences of immigrant youth, from secondary school and beyond.
• A cohesive analysis of how immigration law, education, and health intertwine to shape possible life pathways.
• Descriptions of educational practices that both support and disempower newcomer immigrant students.
• Recommendations for interrupting day-to-day practices that privilege some and disadvantage others.

Lisa (Leigh) Patel is an associate professor of education at Boston College. She has been a journalist, a teacher, and a state-level policymaker. Visit her website at Lisapatel.org.

”Patel has written the kind of book that education needs.”

—Harvard Education Review

"Patel brings together a humanist-oriented scholarship and participatory action research to learn side-by-side with youth—youth whose voices and experiences remind us that our work as teachers and researchers should be about creating a dignified life for all people.”
—Kris D. Gutiérrez, past president of AERA

“A brilliant policy analyst, biting social critic, and loving biographer of lives, Leigh is—despite herself—a stunning romantic smitten with passion for the vitality, humanity, and creativity of these young immigrant lives.”
—From the Foreword by Michelle Fine, Graduate Center, The City University of New York

“Poignant and insightful….After reading this book it will no longer be possible to use code words like ‘undocumented’ and ‘illegal’ to keep these young people silenced and confined to the shadowy world of fugitives.”
—Pedro Noguera, executive director, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University

“Lisa Patel is both ethnographer and poet in telling stories of anguish and desperation, but in the end, stories of hope and survival. All teachers, and anyone who cares about the future of our nation, must read this book.”
—Sonia Nieto, professor emerita, School of Education, University of Massachusetts

“Patel brings into compelling focus and with love young people who are all around us yet not wholly seen, making the case that America's race problem of the 20th century is compounded in this one by issues of immigration.”
—Susan E. Wilcox, community and university educator, writer

“Patel’s exceptional research, keen insight, and deep empathy toward one of the most important and vibrant populations in the United States inspires us to seek and create immigration policies that reflect and restore human dignity and justicia.”
—Curtis Acosta, Chicano/Latino literature teacher, founder of Acosta Latino Learning Partnership

2013 AESA Critics’ Choice Award