Resiliency in Mixed Status Families
Shirley Paxtor
Issues:
• There are 4.1 million U.S.-born children with at
least one parent or family member who is
undocumented.
• People in mixed status families do not have
enough resources, support, or representation in
the U.S. Mixed status families are a family with
members of varying legal status.
• While this term refers to families with both
citizen and non-citizen parents and children,
these families may consist of members with any
combination of legal status.
• A prevalent situation is one in which the children
have citizenship by being born in the U.S. and at
least one parent is a non-citizen. (Beuch &
Keller, 2014)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12286
Why?
• The data disproportionately targets, highlighted,
dehumanizes the Latinx undocumented
immigrants. (Pedro Riojas, 2019)
• Isolates families from the larger society,
documented or not. The Latinx demographic is
the fastest growing population of people of
color in the US. The lack of participation could
be detrimental to the US economy. (Rodriquez,
2016)
Salt Lake Community College
Family Dynamic:
Females with citizenships often times take on
responsibilities to represent the family members like:
• Be the face of immigration movement
• Becoming translators as early as grade school
Males are less likely to represent their families in
public fora. Men are often…
• Breadwinner
• Stop or slow their education to work & send money
back home
• Pressure to graduate early
Mental Health:
Children with a parent who got deported were likely to
have problems with depression, anxiety and trauma (https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bal-horsey-ice-raids-and-white-house-schemes-provoke-fear-in-latino-families-20170224-story.html)
history issues.
What we can do?
Socio-economic status: • Policy reform surrounding data gathering, storing, and
Parents’ undocumented status is strongly associated dissemination about the undocumented immigrant
with poverty, discrimination, parental distress, and experience.
poor physical and mental health of their children • Providing accurate, up to date, and informed information for
(American Psychological Association, 2012) people who come from mixed status families.
• FERPA-like protected information for mixed status families.
Deportation/separation: Protected information to support students beyond school.
About half a million parents deported between 2009 Processes to prevent widespread personal information.
and 2013, children of undocumented parents are likely
to live in fear of their parent’s deportation and family Literature:
being separated. (Abrego, 2019) There is little to no data about this group of people or people
from these situations. Data about undocumented people are
disproportionately about Mexican immigrants, completely
erasing the identities of other groups of undocumented
immigrants. (Sanmiguel-Valderrama 2013; Rodriguez 2016;
Gulbas & Zaynas 2017)
Discussion:
• What kind of things might block us from
accomplishing our solution?
• What other things should we consider
about mixed status family experiences?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/78/41/f07841c55d73552bb4870c2a1846be92.jpg) Contact information: spaxtor@bruinmail.slcc.edu