208 pages, 6 x 9
4 color images and 5 tables
Hardcover
Release Date:15 Jul 2025
ISBN:9781978828834
Undocumented in the U.S. South
How Youth Navigate Racialization in Policy and School Contexts
Rutgers University Press
Undocumented in the U. S. South is a rare look into the everyday realities of undocumented youth in K-12 public schools. In an anti-immigrant policy context, youth and their families navigate historical and current legacies and realities of segregation, racial discrimination and inequality. With a deep three-year ethnographic study, hundreds of hours of observational research, interviews, and policy analysis, Rodriguez traces the lives of undocumented youth across multiple public school settings. Her research underscores how these youth are racialized through state policies, school and organizational practices, and everyday interactions with educators and peers. As the first study of its kind to combine this unique framework for analysis, Undocumented in the U. S. South sheds light on what youth have to deal with in their everyday struggle to belong. Rodriguez invites us to consider youth experiences as central knowledge for improving educators’ awareness and school practice, while promoting policies that are humanizing and rooted in youth experience.
SOPHIA RODRIGUEZ is an associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Her work examines the experiences of immigrant youth with varying legal status and how schools and community-based organizations cultivate belonging for them. Her work has been generously supported by the William T Grant and Spencer Foundations and appears in Educational Researcher, Teachers College Record, and Urban Education as well as The Washington Post. She is the co-author of Race Frames: Structuring Inequality and Opportunity in a Changing Educational Landscape (2022).
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part I Macro
Chapter 2: Ethnographic Interlude I, “I don’t feel welcome here.”
Chapter 3: “This state is racist with its policies toward Hispanics. We work, but don’t have
rights.”: Racialization of immigrants at macro-historical and policy levels.
Part II Meso
Chapter 4: Ethnographic Interlude II, “We call them coolers–immigration rooms are cold.”
Chapter 5: “I was born at the border, like the wrong side of it.”: Racialization and discrimination
at Denizen West High and Citizen North High.
Part III Micro
Chapter 6: “Even being a citizen is not a privilege if you’re Hispanic here...” Undocumented
youth perceptions of racialized citizenship.
Chapter 7: Conclusion and implications for education policy and practice
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Part I Macro
Chapter 2: Ethnographic Interlude I, “I don’t feel welcome here.”
Chapter 3: “This state is racist with its policies toward Hispanics. We work, but don’t have
rights.”: Racialization of immigrants at macro-historical and policy levels.
Part II Meso
Chapter 4: Ethnographic Interlude II, “We call them coolers–immigration rooms are cold.”
Chapter 5: “I was born at the border, like the wrong side of it.”: Racialization and discrimination
at Denizen West High and Citizen North High.
Part III Micro
Chapter 6: “Even being a citizen is not a privilege if you’re Hispanic here...” Undocumented
youth perceptions of racialized citizenship.
Chapter 7: Conclusion and implications for education policy and practice
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
