Brenda Barrientos on "Undocumented and Coming of Age in America"

In " Undocumented and Coming of Age in America," Gonzalez and Varga have expressed their frustrations with The United States poor handling of immigration, framed in a dichotomy of "good" vs. "bad" immigrants that have not only prevented undocumented immigrants from fully becoming a part of the nation, but have also prevented the children they'd brought with them from receiving their promised chance at success. It is in their interactions with the 1.5 generation that Gonzalez and Vargas observe how these distinctions have created difficulties in transitioning into adulthood for illegal immigrants who’ve lived in the US since childhood.

The dichotomy of "good" and "bad" have stretched beyond adulthood for the 1.5 generation: the beginning of a process of exclusion starts as soon as elementary school. Though the Plyer decision allowed immigrant children at least a guaranteed a K-12 education, the authors note, they are not given any means to acquire citizenship or legal guarantee to a college education, both of which are essential keys to participating in and being protected by a system that would sooner deport them than accept them, based on shallow restrictions upon their actions if they're deemed"bad" immigrants.

The result of these restrictions leave them in what the authors call a "liminal stage," their name for how in-between many of the 1.5 generation are: between being social accepted as members of their communities, but legal outsiders according to the law. It is in this division of self, the authors claim, that creates a frustrating division of identities that provides no help to their futures: where their legally born cousins are promised jobs with the acquisition of a college degree, often the former cannot even begin to apply to colleges because of either home situations or financial difficulties from an inability to even obtain well-paying jobs. Their illegality, its noted, prevents them from becoming full-functioning adults in American society, and worsens their quality of life to dire straits. 

From their experiences with undocumented youth and research into the lives and conditions with them, I have to agree that this is another unfair and complicated situation that earns both righteous indignation and sympathy. The frustrations with American immigration policies and its education system aside, there's still hope yet that the fight for the right to legal citizenship and equal opportunity will continue. What's necessary is a change in policies, and Adriana Gonzalez is doing just that, joining others in a hunger strike to raise support for changes to DACA. 

 If given the opportunity, we should be able to discuss the other possible structural reforms  to give undocumented young immigrants a chance to pave their way upwards into the higher echelons of the American workforce and society, as proper citizens rather than aliens with little protections from the system.