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Ecologies of adaptation for Mexican Indigenous im/migrant children and families in the United States: Implications for Latino studies

Latino Studies volume 14, pages 192–213 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

Mexican Indigenous im/migrants are a growing community made invisible at the margins of multiple racial, cultural and linguistic spaces in Mexico and the United States. This article addresses the need for a nuanced understanding of the adaptation of Mexican Indigenous im/migrant children and families that encourages Indigenous communities’ cultural and linguistic knowledge to be recognized and valued, rather than silenced and stigmatized. We critically examine the existing literature on the adaptation of Mexican Indigenous im/migrants in the United States from the perspective of socio-ecological systems theory, incorporating insights from the theory but also pointing out its limitations for understanding Mexican Indigenous identities and experiences in diaspora. We propose integrating language-ecological approaches to provide a more complete picture of Indigenous ecologies of adaptation in the United States. We conclude that it is critical to expand research on Mexican Indigenous im/migrant adaptation within the field of Latino studies and identify possible directions for future research.

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Notes

  1. We use Arzubiaga et al.’s (2009) term “im/migrant,” as they did, to refer to those persons who have been labeled “immigrant, migrant and refugee, including the undocumented” (246), and to be inclusive of the diverse immigration trajectories of Mexican Indigenous families and children.

  2. Anthony-Stevens has made multiple trips to the Popocatepetl foothill community in central Puebla as part of ongoing ethnographic documentation of Indigenous teachers’ agency and identity negotiations in intercultural schooling.

  3. The 2010 US Census did not capture the actual numbers of Mexican Indigenous im/migrants in New York due to lack of participation by these communities, with only a 38 per cent census form return rate (Correal 2010).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Program for Transborder Communities of the School of Transborder Studies, Arizona State University, for providing seed grant funding to finalize this publication. They would also like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for providing useful feedback on the article. Lastly, thank you to the participants in the Sociocultural Research Group at Arizona State University for their valuable suggestions on an early draft.

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  1. Arizona State University, Tempe

    Saskias Casanova & Brendan H O’Connor

  2. University of Idaho, Moscow

    Vanessa Anthony-Stevens

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Casanova, S., O’Connor, B. & Anthony-Stevens, V. Ecologies of adaptation for Mexican Indigenous im/migrant children and families in the United States: Implications for Latino studies. Lat Stud 14, 192–213 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2016.4

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Keywords

  • Indigenous im/migrants
  • children
  • families
  • adaptation
  • identity
  • language