Undocumented Students’ Jarring Transition to Workforce

ColorLines
    As Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first part of the California DREAM Act, AB 130, into law last week, activists were quick to point out that what they see as the most important portion of the Act remains unsigned. This second bill, AB 131, would give undocumented students access to publicly funded financial aid for higher education, whereas AB 130 only opens up channels for privately funded scholarships. Later in the week, a number of media outlets reported on a new study of undocumented youth by Roberto Gonzales, and some emphasized that his research found that college degrees don’t help the career prospects of these immigrants. This narrow reading of Gonzales’ study seemed to imply a “Why bother?” stance regarding the education of America’s unauthorized immigrants.
    “That’s a very short, decon-textualized soundbite,” says Gonzales, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago.
    His study, “Learning To Be Illegal,” was published in this month’s American Sociological Review. It reports on four years’ worth of interviews with 150 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States before they were 12 years old. The study highlights the jarring transition that young immigrants face as they enter adulthood and are forced to cope with their unauthorized status.
    “This is a group of young people that, in a lot of ways, had subscribed to ideals of meritocracy,” Gonzales explains. “They’d been taught that if you work hard enough and if you dream boldly enough, ultimately you can get what you’ve worked so hard for. But now they realize, ‘Wow, my reality looks totally different,’ and find themselves with very few options.”
    Every child is guaranteed a K-12 education, no matter what kind of documentation they can provide. But once students graduate from public schools, they must deal with the harsh reality of living as an undocumented resident, often for the first time, Gonzales explains. As a result, even a college education doesn’t mean that aspirations for a meaningful career will materialize.
            Of the undocumented immigrants interviewed for Gonzales’ study, none of the 22 with an undergraduate degree or the nine who had completed graduate programs were pursuing their dream careers or working jobs that they’d hoped for. Most were doing the same kind of low-wage work as their parents, who had hoped their labor would provide their children with greater opportunities.
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