Unaccompanied Journeys: Understanding the Migration of Central American Youth
Dr. Stephanie Canizales, a researcher and professor at UC Berkeley, dives deep into the often-overlooked experiences of unaccompanied children migrating from Central America and Mexico. She highlights how these young individuals embark on perilous journeys in search of a better future, driven by the socio-political and economic instability in their home countries. Throughout her research, Canizales emphasizes the importance of understanding the systemic issues at play, such as U.S. intervention and the lack of support for immigrant youth once they arrive in the U.S. She shares powerful stories from her fieldwork, illustrating the resilience and collective spirit of these children as they navigate challenges and strive for a better life. Ultimately, Canizales calls for a rethinking of policies and societal attitudes towards unaccompanied minors, urging listeners to recognize their humanity and potential.
Dr. Stephanie Canizales, a sociologist at UC Berkeley, delves into the complex and often heartbreaking realities faced by unaccompanied immigrant children from Central America and Mexico. Her extensive research illuminates the intricate interplay between immigration policies and the lived experiences of these vulnerable youths, who often undertake perilous journeys in search of a better future. Canizales discusses her own background as a Salvadoran-American and how her upbringing shaped her scholarly pursuits, emphasizing the disconnection she felt from her heritage and the motivations behind her research. Through her work, she aims to shed light on the often-overlooked stories of resilience and strength among these young migrants, as they navigate a system that frequently fails to protect them.
Central to Canizales's exploration is the role of family and community in the lives of these children. Despite facing significant challenges, many young migrants articulate their ambitions not only for themselves but also for the well-being of their families, highlighting a collective desire for upliftment. Canizales 's narrative challenges stereotypes and misconceptions about immigrant youth, presenting them as proactive agents in their own lives rather than mere victims of circumstance. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the broader socio-political dynamics that contribute to their migration, including historical injustices and ongoing systemic inequalities.
As a call to action, Canizales advocates for comprehensive policy reforms that address the root causes of migration and provide legal protections for unaccompanied minors. She urges listeners to recognize the humanity behind the statistics and to understand their roles in advocating for the rights and dignity of all migrant children. Through her poignant storytelling and in-depth analysis, Canizales not only informs but also inspires a deeper commitment to social justice and human rights for the most marginalized communities.
Takeaways:
- Dr. Stephanie Canizales emphasizes the importance of understanding the root causes of migration, highlighting historical and contemporary factors such as U.S. intervention and colonial legacies.
- Unaccompanied youth often face disillusionment upon arrival in the U.S. when they realize that living independently without adult support is challenging and isolating.
- The experiences of unaccompanied minors reveal that they often take on adult responsibilities at a young age, pursuing not just personal goals but also family uplift.
- Canizales shares inspiring stories of youth who, despite hardships, create supportive communities and prioritize their collective well-being over individual success.
- Her research underscores the need for policy changes that recognize the unique challenges faced by unaccompanied minors and provide them with adequate protections and resources.
- Listeners are encouraged to get involved with immigrant-serving organizations and advocate for workplace protections to support vulnerable populations.
Transcript
My guest today is Dr.
Host:Stephanie Canales, a researcher, author, and professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is a faculty director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative.
Host:She earned her Ph.D.
Host: ity of Southern California in: Host:She specialized in the study of international immigration and immigration integration with a particular interest in the experiences of Latin American origin or immigrants and their descendants in the United States.
Host:Over the last decade, she has focused her work on the migration and coming of age of unaccompanied children from Central America and Mexico and California and Texas.
Host:Throughout her research and writing, Stephanie explores the role of immigration policy in shaping the everyday lives of migrant children and their families.
Host:How my immigrants and the communities they arrive to transform one another and immigrants articulate an immigrant's articulations of success and well being within an increasingly unequal U.
Host:S.
Host:Society.
Host:Her first book, Sin padres ne Pablis, takes on many of these issues.
Host:We welcome her to the podcast.
Host:Well, good morning.
Host:How you doing?
Host:Dr.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I'm doing well.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:How are you doing?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Dr.
Host:I'm Doing well.
Host:It's good to talk to you.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Good to be here with you.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Thanks for the invitation.
Host:Me too.
Host:I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Host:Very, very important topic and very timely for our time and our season in life.
Host:So it should be a fascinating conversation.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I hope so.
Host:But before we get into all the details of that me ask my favorite question, which is, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Oh, my gosh, I think the best piece of advice.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Oh, there's two that come to mind.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:First noted, which is Salvadoran women telling other women, don't let people just push you around.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So that, that's my grandma's voice in my head.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then I think as it relates to the conversation we're having today, just put your head down and work.
Host:Yeah.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, do what matters to you and just wake up every morning and do the thing that matters to you.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And whatever else is happening, it's none of my business.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right?
Host:That's right.
Host:That's right.
Host:I'm always curious about people like yourself.
Host:You know, we never get where we are in life without people pouring into us, being, coming alongside us in our journey.
Host:Who were some people that stand out for you that were particularly influential in your life?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, I would say my 10th grade English teacher who was the first person who sat down with me and told me how to revise writing.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I wrote an essay that I think he kind of liked but was like, you could do better than this.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So he sat with me and actually showed me how to do a revision of an essay, which was obviously game changing because I wrote a whole book.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then I think kind of other than like the, you know, my mom, who is my, you know, superhero of a human, I think there are two people that became my dissertation co advisors who just kept going to bat for me when others were saying that I wasn't cut out for what I think is beyond just a curiosity or an interest, but what I think is a calling.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And for someone to two people to continuously over and over say, don't count her out, don't count her out.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That I think kept me in the game long enough to prove that I actually had it in me to do what I want to do in this life.
Host:Yeah.
Host:The dissertation process is a long grind.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yes.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Years.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah.
Host:Yeah.
Host:That's so special.
Host:I'm curious how your upbringing as a daughter of a Salvadorian immigrant in Los Angeles influence your interests in sociology and migrant studies.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I grew up, you know, both my parents are Salvadoran immigrants.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Through my research, I learned that they had grown up as unaccompanied young people in Los Angeles.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That isn't something I grew up knowing.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales: I only found out in: Dr. Stephanie Canales:My parents both came out of El Salvador out of their migration experience, out of that unaccompanied growing up, not talking about them.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, once our family formed, once my dad, you know, found God and joined a church and then kind of brought my mom into the fold, that was sort of the starting point for our family.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I didn't really grow up knowing about El Salvador.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I didn't grow up knowing a ton about how they grew up.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I think it's kind of the opposite that people often assume that I somehow knew a bunch about my family, and that's what motivated my interest.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It was the not knowing.
Host:Okay.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And the sort of like, something is missing here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It doesn't make sense to me why we were instructed to say that we were Mexican.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:My older sister and I were instructed to say we were Mexican.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:You know, learning later that that was because of anti Central American sentiment in the U.S.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:especially in a very Mexican Los Angeles.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It didn't make sense to me why every couple of months my grandma had to go back to El Salvador and learning about the visa process and like, having to prove that you're not meant to in the U.S.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:all of these things that I just didn't really get.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And the more I read and the more that I studied the topic of migration, Central American migration, you know, the history of Mexican community formation in Los Angeles, I started to wrap my head around what it actually meant to be me.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And like, who my family was in this context.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So, yeah, it was the not understanding.
Host:Right.
Host:You know, I was asked this.
Host:I get asked this question a lot being being African American.
Host:And that is what terminology do.
Host:Because.
Host:Because all Hispanics are not the same.
Host:So is.
Host:Is.
Host:Did you connect more with being Latino or Latina or Hispanic, or did it not matter when you were growing up, that distinction?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:You know, I've never really liked the term Hispanic.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I think it's like, it's rootedness in Spanish colonization in Latin America.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I didn't.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I wasn't like 4 years old.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, I don't want to be.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It wasn't that.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I just like, didn't really like Hispanic.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I don't know.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It always made me a little uncomfortable.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I think I knew it in the context of, again, church, where it was Iglesia Bautista Hispanic.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It was the Baptist Hispanic church.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I was just like, I don't really like that.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I think, you know, when I learned, when I went to UCLA for undergrad, I.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Our sort of Latino studies or Latinx studies or whatever was Chicano studies.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I did.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that also wasn't me.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I wasn't, you know, Mexican American reconnecting with indigenous heritage.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I've sort of gravitated towards Latina or Latinx in a broader sense when we're talking like, white, black, Asian.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:If you're going to put me in a category, it would be Latinx, I guess.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But when I'm with Latinos, I am either Central American or very specifically Salvadoran because there's so many references, I think, in the US Culturally that are rooted in Mexican Latino identity.
Host:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I don't.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I don't really know those things, even as, like I said earlier, I also don't really know the Salvadoran version of that because I didn't grow up getting those things passed down to me.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But I definitely just try to, like, get closer and closer to being able to say, like, I'm just Salvadoran born in the U.S.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:right.
Host:Right.
Host:So I know when I did my dissertation, something drove me to want to study that.
Host:What drove you to research and discover the coming of age of unaccompanied children in America and stuff from South America.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, I was.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:When I was in undergrad at ucla, I mentioned that Was like my.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:My drive to understand really what the heck was going on in my family and, like, why we were where we were and why did we operate the way we did as a family.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I was interested in studying for a long time immigrant, second generation immigrant youth identity.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I was interested in understanding Central American youth identity.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I knew it in the context of immigrant students.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I became really involved in the undocumented student movement at UCLA on campus.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then when I went across town to USC for grad school, sort of graduated into the organizing scene in Los Angeles more broadly in that context, again, surrounded by what I now would say is like, the normative undocumented immigrant young person.
Dr. Stephanie Canales: ow, from the Dream act in the: Dr. Stephanie Canales:That movement was really driven by young people who.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Who had parents or adult caregivers in the room, allowing them to be the students and become the organizer and then lead the charge there.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So when I started studying immigrant youth identity, I was interested in group formation, organizing spaces.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I was told to, by my dissertation advisor, learn the landscape.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Learn the social landscape, which, like, what I tell her to this day, like, what the heck did that even mean?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, you wanted.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, you're sending me to.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Out to Los Angeles.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, learn the immigrant landscape, which is all of Southern California, right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So someone told me that there was a group of undocumented Central American youth that met at a coffee shop in Pico Union, Los Angeles, and that they would welcome me on a Friday night, and I could just go meet these people and see if I wanted to be a part of that group.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that was the first group I was introduced to, where I learned of the strength of the garment industry in downtown la, which I didn't know existed as prominently as it still does to this day.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It's the first time I learned of immigrant youth being child laborers in the garment industry and that these young people were growing up as such because they didn't have parents in the US to allow those opportunities to go to school.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:No one was paying their rent for them.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:No one was doing their laundry for them.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:No one was making their dinner at night.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So it sort of turned everything that I had read in books, you know, everything that I'd seen in organizing, everyone that I knew from being in college for four years, I was like, wait a minute.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:This is not.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:This is not at all who we're talking about or who I personally know.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I ended up spending Six years embedded in that support group for young people, and then from there, really started to learn the language of unaccompanied youth, child labor, or the difference between labor and work.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And became really interested in how young people, quite like the undocumented adults that we have been reading about for decades, were leaving home to build houses and start businesses and put their siblings through school.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And it's just like the complete opposite of everything I had known.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I spent, yeah, seven years just studying that.
Host:So for these undocumented children, kind of tell us, I'm sure you probably learned some of this.
Host:How do they end up getting here?
Host:There must be something that spurred this.
Host:What is driving that population to.
Host:To make that dangerous trek?
Host:I mean, I've heard about how all the terrible things that happen sometimes along the way to get here.
Host:What.
Host:What's driving them to come or leading it.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I opened the book with a chapter on departures.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And the story I tell there is one that is very much rooted in what we know historically about Central America and Mexico.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There is political, economic, and social insecurity that displaces people, and that these forms of insecurity are really rooted in, again, colonialism, legacies of colonialism and disempowerment, and then also more recently, US Intervention and US Imperialism across Latin America.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So civil wars in Central America that have led to repression of certain groups, young people being targets of silencing, persecution, of displacement, for the sake of not having generations of organizers against the imperial US State.
Dr. Stephanie Canales: w these young people, even in: Dr. Stephanie Canales:But when you sit down and interview them, when you talk to them, they're not saying, you know, all of these generations of privatization, they're telling you things like, I didn't see a future here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I couldn't go.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There weren't opportunities for me to learn, for me to grow, to become the person that I wanted to be.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I really tried to ground their conversations with me in a broader context, a structural context, you know, the global economy.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But then also think more deeply about how young people come to see that they don't have a future in the country in which they're born.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So they are pursuing.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:They're migrating in pursuit of an imagined future.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they set these migration goals independently.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Again, who do I want to be?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:What do I want to become?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But also in conversation with their families, they set collective goals of family uplift, of again starting a business, building a home.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Even if a young person themselves had only gone to school for three years, they wanted to complete their education and if they couldn't do it themselves, they would support their siblings in doing that.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So there was a lot of stories that I heard over and over again about how young people had set migration goals that were rooted in, again, the future they imagined for themselves, but the future they imagined for their families.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that's not something that you typically hear a nine year old saying.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I'm really thinking about the collective future of my family and the future of my siblings.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That's the adult job.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So thinking about how this version of childhood, of adolescence and then the transition to adulthood isn't normative and that they're adopting roles that we don't typically assign to children, and that's what really motivates their, their migration and then their persistence in jobs that they know are exploitative and harmful for them.
Host:So I'm sure, like with me, when you start doing this research, you find things you're surprised by.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah.
Host:What surprised you most about their story?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I think the whole, the whole thing, the whole thing just surprises me.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And to this day, you know, someone read back an excerpt from my book and it had me in tears because I was like, wow, I can't believe people are living like this.
Dr. Stephanie Canales: I've been studying this since: Dr. Stephanie Canales:And we, we are in one fight or another for justice, but we don't think that it is children that are sustaining our economies or our lifestyles.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So that shocked me.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But I think when it sort of comes down to the data itself, what sort of surprised me the most, I think is that even as there is so much suffering that comes with children being displaced from their families and their communities, even as there is day to day suffering in low wage work, people making six, seven, eight dollars a day in Los Angeles, you know, people, there's one person that worked about 66 hours a week, I remember very explicitly, and I asked him, where, how do you sort of expense your pay?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, where does it go?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he gave me the itemized list of where his money goes.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he says, I have $5 at the end of the week to feed myself over the weekend until he starts work again on Monday.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And, and like that, I, I just, you know, Someone arriving to the US at 14.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that is the life.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That surprises me.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But then the fact that even in all of that, that they.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That my participants and their friends and everyone that I sort of met in the field across the six years of research, that they came together and admired each other's strength and they look to each other for guidance and wisdom and sort of next steps.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Because the people that had been here for six years could say something to the people that had been here for two years.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I think that sort of collectivism that is born, that even in deep suffering and deep poverty, young people are not deviant and wandering around and become these sort of, as, you know, media or politicians would like to frame it, that these are young people who really are interested in preservation of self and preservation of community.
Host:As you did this study, I'm sure you've ran across a lot of heartbreaking stories.
Host:Were there some stories that inspired you in this journey?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, one of my favorite stories, I'll say two.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Two of my favorite stories are.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I forget the names that I gave them in the book.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There were two young people that were garment workers in Los Angeles, two young men, both from Guatemala, both.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they met in a garment factory.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they both had interest in martial arts and exercise and just like boys doing boy things.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they both talked.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I interviewed them individually, and neither one of them said the name of the other person.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And it was only in them elaborating on their story that I realized that they had been talking about each other.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So one of them had joined a karate class, and he was really interested in moving out of the garment industry and becoming a karate instructor and unfortunately had injured his knee and could no longer practice martial arts.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He had a friend who we met in a garment factory who was also interested in martial arts and karate and was.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Was interested in things like boxing and running and anything that they could do to counter the sort of repetitive motions they did in the workplace in the garment factory.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Again, like 16 hours a day of just on the same machine.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So these young people came together, the two of them, teenage boys came together and started a running club that would meet on Sunday afternoons.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Because these young people are working Monday through Saturday, 6am to 6pm and they would go to church on Sundays and then have, like, Sunday afternoons off.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So they started a running club.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they talked about how they became a community of young people that initially started as them and their friends, young, young boys, but then started to include women in the group.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they would run together and then older Men started to join the group because they realized, oh, these young people are starting a community, and they're active and a consistent place where they could meet with one another.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that was, to me, again, a sign of how the individual becomes the collective and how young people are not just worried about themselves, but they really started to think about, who is my community and what does my community need?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And both of these young men would talk about the running club as something that they saw that they needed.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:They needed friends, they needed physical activity, they needed to be outside, right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Because even if you're going from work to home and then at church or you're going to, like, they're always indoors, right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:They're just moving from space to space.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So they talked about, like, identifying needs that they had and creating spaces where those needs would be met individually and collectively.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then there was another young person.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I named him.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I remember naming him Gael in the book.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He migrated to Los Angeles from Guatemala at the age of 16 after his father passed and his mom couldn't make ends meet for him and his siblings.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He came to the US Thinking that he could work a few hours a day and go to school and finish schooling.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Didn't happen.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He worked in a garment factory.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He worked in a restaurant kitchen.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Had his wages stolen over and over again.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He got a job as a florist assistant in the downtown Los Angeles flower market.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It's this, like, huge warehouse of just stalls of floral markets.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he learned there that he loved floral design.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he had this dream of becoming a party planner.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He wanted to make floral arrangements for parties, quinceaneras, weddings, church, you know, like big arrangements in churches.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he, during our interview, told me that he was not ever able to go to school, but through working, was able to stop his three younger siblings from unaccompanied migration.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he said, you know, people look at me and they maybe say, you've been here for five years and you've done nothing with your life.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But he said, my accomplishment has been making my mom proud, right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And making sure my siblings didn't come here to suffer the way I've suffered.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that, to him, was an accomplishment that wasn't college degrees.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He didn't learn English.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:He didn't do all of these things that we sort of assign value to.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then two years ago, I saw him in Los Angeles, and he had opened his own floral shop in LA with the help of some people who were willing to sign the documents for him.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But I see him on Instagram, I see him on TikTok.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Posting all of his designs.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And he really did the thing right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like he did what he wanted to do, which was become a shop owner and design floral arrangements for people.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that to me is, you know, it's a little bit longer, maybe requires different forms of support, but he was able to push through barriers.
Host:I love that.
Host:You know, I think we hear we've made this issue of migration into a political football and we forget about the people.
Host:If you could think of some policies or an approach to deal with this issue, because just what you're talking about, what you're describing is horrible.
Host:How do we get young children in factories working these ungodly hours for minimum wage?
Host:And how do they survive in L A is not cheap.
Host:If even if you had a great job in la, it's hard to live.
Host:So how are they?
Host:How do we change the system so that we don't have kids being exploited like this?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, I end the book on that exact question.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I sort of follow for folks that read Sin padres ni papeles, I follow the structure, the organization of the book.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I talk about the displacement, I talk about the arrival context, the fact that many of my participants had long settled relatives living in the US that young people thought that they would be the source of support, that they could arrive to the doorstep of their aunts, their uncle, their cousin who'd been in the US for 12 years, 15 years, whatever it was.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But that person said, I can't have you here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like I can't afford to have you here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I can't have a child worker here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I can't, I just can't take you in.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that again is the chapter three is one entitled Disorientation, where young people are disoriented by the fact that now they're totally independent, right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they have to find a place to live.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And now they have to find a place to work on their own.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But they're also emotionally disoriented because they are still just teenagers living in their teenage bodies, not really understanding all the day to day changes.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And they feel betrayed, they feel disillusioned, they feel disappointed that now and afraid, right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:All of the fears and stressors that come with now realizing you didn't just migrate unaccompanied, you're now growing up unaccompanied.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that wasn't what they anticipated.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I talk in the conclusion of the book about how we should create, not create, we should understand that the root causes, right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I remember at the beginning of the Biden administration we were promised a humane approach to immigration that would address root causes.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And what happened?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:The Vice President got sent to Guatemala and the words that came out of her mouth were, do not come here.
Host:Right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:If you can hear my voice, do not come here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That is not an appropriate address of the root cause.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:The root cause again is US Intervention.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It is corporations privatizing resources and degrading the environment.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It is the disinvestment in systems of education for the sake of investing in military and border enforcement.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So if we're going to talk about root causes, let's really talk about root causes.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:In which case we would have to acknowledge that Central Americans are refugees in the U.S.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:people that are displaced by U.S.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:funded military regimes that have persecuted generations of individuals, particularly indigenous populations in each of those nation states.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:We should really talk about that and grant some kind of legal protection for people.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That would have helped then the long settled relatives of the recently arrived kids to say, actually yeah, I do have the income and the space and the security to take you in.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that wouldn't have left young people so vulnerable.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:We need to talk about workplace rights, workplace protection.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Regardless of immigration status, workers have the right to workplace protection and the right to livable wages in the U.S.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There's that layer so that if, say, unaccompanied children are not recognized as refugees, if their long settled relatives are not recognized as refugees and able to take them in, then kids would, if they end up in workplaces, have safer workplaces.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:We need to talk about housing policy.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There's so many ways, like if we don't want to do this, well, how about this?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, and I try to really tackle that issue, but one of the things that I sort of, I try to stay grounded in the population that I researched, right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Unaccompanied migrant youth workers.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:One of the, I think sort of absolutely essential steps, regardless of whether you want to go micro change or macro change, is we need to really get in tune with the fact that immigrant youth in the US do not all have parents or an adult caregiver.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Regardless of relationship to the child who is taking them in, there isn't always an adult in the room.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That then enables children to be children as we sort of understand it in the US context.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So that means also accounting for whether it be at hospitals and clinics, at schools, at food banks, at homeless shelters, the fact that there isn't always an adult to sign the guardian line or to sign the parent line.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And we need to trust that children know what their needs are.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So if I've heard of so many young people in across California that have shown up at food banks and they're being denied food because they don't have a parent or guardian.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Why can't a child under the age of 18 access food without, you know, why can't a child under the age of 18 access housing overnight shelter?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:The young people that I interviewed ended up enrolling in adult English language schools, you know, at 7:30pm after they finished the full 16 hour shift at work.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that was because there were some, I talked to some administrators at the adult English language school that said, we know they're minors, but what are we going to do?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Tell them they can't learn any English?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like you can't go to any school.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But we need to change our sort of conception of who youth are and what resources they have access to to account for the fact that it isn't just immigrant youth.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There are homeless and runaway youth.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There are children of incarcerated parents, there are foster youth who are in need of services that are denied to them because they don't have someone signing that parent or guardian line on forms and eligibility documents.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right, Right.
Host:So if someone is hearing this podcast and going, I want to learn more, I want to get involved in being able, being a force of change.
Host:What advice would you have for those who are interested?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, I would.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:You know, there's, I'm an academic, I'm a researcher.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:My first sort of tidbit would be to start reading.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, I really think there's so much great work.
Dr. Stephanie Canales: me, some books dating back to: Dr. Stephanie Canales:I'm thinking of Susan Terrio's Whose Child Am I?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Which talks about children in detention facilities.
Dr. Stephanie Canales: There is a book published in: Dr. Stephanie Canales:migrant hood movement is now inherent in a lot of the social, cultural and economic structures of these communities because of those legacies of displacement.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There's that book, there is a book by Kiara Gali, Precarious Protections, which talks about children going through the legal system of getting asylum and their relationships to lawyers and attorneys.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:My book on child workers, there's so many pockets of the population.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I think first to be involved is to understand unaccompanied children aren't just one thing.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And if you are interested in something about the legal process, you would get involved with legal organizations that are serving unaccompanied children, whether it be through funding, if you're a Spanish language speaker, through intake forms or an indigenous language speaker, whatever intake processes the need for volunteers, you can donate back to, to kids that are going to school.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:If you're interested in child workers, we really need to organize around labor rights and the representation of children's voices in that conversation.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So, like learning which pocket of the population you're interested in I think would be the way to go.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then really at a very high level, any immigrant serving organization that is on the advocacy front would be an important avenue of intervention because as we saw in this last election, and as you said earlier, immigrants are really weaponized.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Immigration is weaponized.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Immigrants are vilified and treated as sort of pawns in a game.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And it is their daily, everyday lives.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That we're talking about.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It isn't just this really high level policy.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:It is a lived experience.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Experience.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And, and recognizing that I think is important.
Host:Yeah, that's really important.
Host:You've, you've done some amazing work here and what you're doing to try to bring awareness to the problem.
Host:Because I had no idea exactly how these kids who we've heard that they're like millions have disappeared when they enter the country.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Host:And we have just no idea where they are because like you said, they go to supposedly reunite with a family in the country and then that family says no.
Host:So where are these kids go?
Host:Somehow we have to deal with the fact that there are a lot of kids who are just not on the radar of people and they're in very dire situations sometimes.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Well, there's.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So, you know, this is what I, what I just said is there's so many pockets.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:There's.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:When we hear about in the news 35,000 kids missing, 85,000 kids missing.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Those are children who are apprehended at the border that are then placed with an adult and something happens in that household and the kid is no longer at the place the government released them to.
Host:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But my book is actually focused on kids who are not apprehended at the border, which we don't know how many.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like there's no way to know how many where what.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And, and I, and to my knowledge, my book is the first book that really gets into the reality of young people who are not apprehended because it's so hard.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I just happened to tap into this group that was meeting Friday nights from 7 to 9pm Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I wouldn't have had a way of knowing where to Find children who had not been apprehended at the border.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But those missing kids is just who the government knows about.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And then there's all these kids that the government doesn't know about.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:We don't know about.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I think that is like.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like what truly is the magnitude of this issue.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:If we don't have that tabulation, we just don't know.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Which is why I'm.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Which is why I say, like, to get involved, it really means getting involved in any immigrant serving organization, because you don't know who's walking around identifying or not as an unaccompanied child, because maybe they don't know that they're unaccompanied.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I just gave a talk actually at.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:On campus here at UC Berkeley a few weeks ago when someone in the audience said, it wasn't until I heard you explain your project that I realized I was unaccompanied.
Host:Wow.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Because the experience is so normalized across Central America, across Mexico, and increasingly from South America also, children leaving home is just a part of the reality of their lives.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And it's upon arrival here that kids realize, oh, wait, there's DACA recipients, there are undocumented adults, there are people with temporary.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And the categories only exist here.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So learning that, even a college student at UC Berkeley learning through like a 20 minute talk that I gave that he was unaccompanied, like, that is, you know, we just don't know where people are and what services they do or don't have access to too.
Host:This amazing, interesting research.
Host:I love to ask my guests this question.
Host:As you think about the work you're doing and the impact you're having, what do you want your legacy to be?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Feel like we need to get my therapist on this, on the call for that question.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Because I always think about this.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I always think about, like, if I die, like, what will people remember?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:You know, I think, and I'm not.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I'm not gonna cry.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I think when I.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:When I think about, like, what I want the meaning of my life to be, I would have always wanted to be perceived as someone who lived in service of others, I think.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And that you.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I mean, it kind of like makes me giggle a little bit that this, like, project my career started, as I mentioned earlier, in a department where my advisors had to go to bat for me every year so that I wouldn't get kicked out of the program, essentially because people just didn't think that a Salvadoran girl, you know, like a woman, whatever they.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I'M sure I was infantilized, but that I would be able to finish the program, that I'd be able to write a dissertation, that I get a job.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So from that reality to my reality now where I'm at UC Berkeley at the number one Sociology department in the US Talking about Central American children, my sort of context has changed a lot.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:But at my core, I'm still the same person.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, I'm still the person that just wants more people to suffer less.
Host:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And you can put me on any stage, any platform, give me any power, and that will still be my orientation to the work that I do.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:So I hope my legacy is one of service and that I can model.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, even if you end up at the number one spot for the thing that you do, the.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:The value should still stay.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Stay the same.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Right.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Like, I'm still always going to do work for the sake of children so that more people suffer less.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I think that's my.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That's my thing.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I hope I go down as the person who.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Who has actually, like, lived that.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:That out.
Host:That's amazing.
Host:Where can listeners find your book and connect with you on social media?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, you can find me on instagram@booksbydoctor.com.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:steph on.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I'm on Blue sky now.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:We left the other platform behind, but Steph Cannizal is there, and then my book is anywhere books are sold.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I recommend Bookshop because it supports independent bookstores, but also Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, wherever you are.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:My books there.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:And I appreciate so much not only this conversation, but generally engagement with my work.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:I really appreciate it.
Host:Well, thanks for doing this and for coming on and sharing information we probably didn't know about as you.
Host:We have our mindset on what kind of unaccompanied children there are, but there are so many different versions of that.
Host:You've kind of opened our eyes to a much wider issue that's out there.
Host:So thank you for that.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Thank you.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Thanks for having me.
Host:As we close this podcast, what key takeaways do you want the audience to leave our from our conversation?
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Oh, I would want people to take away that we all have more to learn and that we all have a role to play.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:This we can all do something.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Regardless of what our orientation is towards this particular population, we can all do something with the power that we have and the influence that we have.
Host:Well, thanks so much, Doc.
Host:You have a great day.
Host:And thanks for what you do and for the information you're sharing with the world.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Yeah, thank you.
Dr. Stephanie Canales:Good to meet.
