Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales is an assistant professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley whose work explores the consequences of immigration policy on migrant children and their families, including undocumented young adults who migrate to the United States unaccompanied. More recently, she published the book, “Sin Padres, Ni Papeles“, which features the experiences of young adults growing up undocumented in Los Angeles, California. It is based on over six years of close participant observation and 75 interviews with young adults, most of whom identified as unaccompanied minors from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico.

Review of “Sin Padres, Ni Papeles”

In the book, “Sin Padres, Ni Papeles,” Dr. Canizales paints a rich portrait of teens who migrate without parents or papers (without legal authorization). By centering their perspectives, we come to understand the nuanced and intimate ways through which immigration policy shapes teens. This process begins to unfold even before migrating (in their countries of birth), during their migration journey, and as they are incorporating into the United States. In the book, Canizales advances the idea that it is important to reconceptualize how we understand the incorporation process to account for teens’ material and socioemotional states. Moreover, Dr. Canizales proposes three different stages through which this happens, observing how youth move from disorientation to orientation, then to adaptation or perdition. In doing so, we come to see that incorporation is not necessarily a static outcome but rather an on-going and dynamic process. It is also one where there are not only objective markers of success but, equally important, subjective understandings are key for us to consider. More specifically, for many of the teens featured in the book, success is measured by one’s ability to give back to loved ones (both in the United States or their countries of birth).

In “Sin Padres, Ni Papeles,” Dr. Canizales also pays close attention to the role of long-settled relatives in supporting (or turning their backs on) youth as they attempt to adjust to U.S. culture and society. What is particularly striking is that, as the author shows, many teens arrive in tenuous household contexts that detrimentally impact their access to opportunities, resources, and ultimately their well-being.

“[…] unaccompanied teens who did not receive the material support of a long-settled relative began with learning the urgency of finding employment to afford debt repayment, housing, food, and other essentials, as well as the structure of opportunities available to them to survive in the short term” (page 133).

Throughout the book, Dr. Canizales grapples with the set of challenges, opportunities, barriers, and resources teens encounter as they pursue their goals in the United States. She also sheds light on the wide range of emotions teens experience during the process, including their fears, worries, sense of purpose, loneliness, and optimism. Caleb, one of the teens Dr. Canizales interviewed, explained some of the emotions he was grappling with at church:

“Being there gives me strength, like when I get depressed because my emotions go up and down, and I can’t figure out what to do when they go down. Prayer helps me a lot. It gives me hope; it gives me strength. Sometimes, I cry, and then I start crying out to God. I begin to say a prayer, and I feel some peace. I feel free, and that helps me.” — Caleb (as featured on “Sin Padres, Ni Papeles”, pg. 123)

Ultimately, scholars of migration, life course theory, children and families, and qualitative research methods will find the book helpful for its discussion of the nuanced process of immigrant incorporation, including the role of familial contexts and socioemotional adaptations. Undergraduate students, social service providers, and the public will also find the book informative and accessible in ways that can help deepen their understanding of the consequences of immigration policy on unaccompanied and undocumented young adults who represent a growing segment of the immigrant population in the United States, and whose needs are presently going unaddressed.

Q & A with Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales

At My Undocumented Life, we had an opportunity to interview Dr. Canizales about her work. We thank her for responding to our questions via e-mail.

1. What motivated you to write the book?

The migrant youth at the center of my research inspired me to learn more and write about unaccompanied youth migration, incorporation, and coming of age.

For context, Sin Padres, Ni Papeles started as a dissertation project. I entered graduate school interested in learning how immigration and immigrant descent shape Central American youth’s sense of self and prospects for mobility as they come of age, especially how these happen in group settings. These interests were piqued because Central American voices and experiences were largely missing from the immigration literature when I entered the conversation.

At the time, I was involved with several immigrant youth-led organizations in Los Angeles, mainly organizing around undocumented students’ rights, which I thought would be the primary focus of my work. However, in 2012, when I was introduced to a youth group made up of unaccompanied and undocumented teens and young adults who were growing up as low-wage workers in Los Angeles, I changed course. The young people in the group that I named Voces de Esperanza in my work had lives unlike anyone I knew, I’d read about in my undergraduate and graduate courses, or met in my organizing work.

I was in my early 20s when I started researching Sin Padres, Ni Papeles, around the same age as the young people I met. This is to say, I was also in that transition to adulthood. It was my first time living alone and not having a roommate. I bought my first car and had bills in my name. It was stressful to think about my future and whether I’d achieve “the thing.” In my case, an MA first, then a PhD, and eventually, get a tenure-track professor job.

Would I attain those goals? I didn’t know. But confidence in taking risks and trying to stand on my own two feet in pursuing those things came from the certainty that I had support. My mom was less than an hour away, my siblings and friends were close, and I had a graduate school committee and peers cheering me on. I also benefited from a broader structural safety net: legal status, a baseline income, health insurance, English-language proficiency, formal education, and a university affiliation that gave my student status credibility.

The young people whose stories I tell in Sin Padres, Ni Papeles were living a completely different reality in the same city, a distinct transition to adulthood. They had grown up as children in factories, restaurant kitchens, and warehouses; they were nannies and domestic workers, car washers, and construction workers. They weren’t enrolled in K-12 schools or colleges. Some spoke Spanish when they arrived in Los Angeles, but many were Indigenous language speakers and had to learn Spanish to begin participating in the immigrant communities they lived in. They were navigating their households and communities independently and navigating Los Angeles and origin-country relationships simultaneously. I was captivated by the intensity of their everyday lives and their courage, creativity, and collectivism in meeting trials and celebrating triumphs.

I wanted to know why and how, so I asked over and over again. Sin Padres, Ni Papeles brings together what I found. Through it, I hope readers can imagine the lives these unaccompanied migrant young people lived (and many unaccompanied youth continue to live today) through the stories I tell, but, more importantly, I hope they can feel these young people’s humanity.

2. What do you hope readers will walk away with after reading the stories featured in the book?

I could give an elaborate answer here about how I want people to walk away with the main theoretical arguments about how immigrants experience integration or why we should pay closer attention to youth agency and be critical of assumptions about how and where immigrant children are growing up. I probably would have before the 2024 election cycle or before witnessing the horrors of the genocide of Palestinians on my phone screen starting in 2023.

A lot has changed drastically in a short period, but, as the book shows, many of the horrors of today are written into our past; they are our destiny in so many ways.

What I want people to take away from the book now is that as much as the big social crises of our day, including migrant child labor in the U.S., are about the hundreds of thousands, they are also about “the one”. I hope readers take away the one because it’s easy to be overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands and lose sight of the humanity in the numbers. I hope readers will meet Camelia, Esmeralda, Serafina, Gael, Caleb, and Wilfredo and feel close to them. I hope readers see themselves or someone they know intimately in the stories I share. We need that commitment to one another and ourselves to keep fighting the good fight.

3. Given the current political climate, growing anti-immigrant sentiment, and heightened fears, how can school personnel best support unaccompanied and undocumented young adults in the United States?

Since finishing the research for Sin Padres, Ni Papeles, I have started an in-depth study of how service providers committed to supporting the well-being of unaccompanied children and other immigrants living in the U.S. are experiencing their day-to-day work. I refer to these attorneys, social workers, case managers, health practitioners, educators, and advocates as “community helpers” because they are often motivated by their or their family’s migration experiences. They are dedicated to ensuring that today’s immigrant families are not afflicted by the same issues their parents or even they were. Learning about how these individuals spend their time, expertise, and resources to better the lives of disparaged and targeted groups inspires some hope in me for the future.

If I can think of any essential thing that school personnel can engage in to support the immigrant young people like those in my research, it’s to be present. Throughout the book, I talk about the process of desahogo, something like unburdening or venting, which is essential for all of us as we are coming of age and even well into adulthood. I also talk about the importance of “witnessing,” the very simple idea of seeing young people, validating their existence, and acknowledging their efforts to survive and succeed.

Being able to unburden with someone you trust and to be seen by them is so basic; it doesn’t seem like too much to ask. But for unaccompanied young people who grow up without parents or other adult caregivers to turn to at the end of each day, for young people who don’t have someone to share the trials and triumphs of the day, these are social and emotional needs that must be met for young people to do and be well. Outside of parent-led households and without the teachers, counselors, and peers that schools provide, unaccompanied migrant teens turn to one another for unburdening and witnessing.

What gives me the most hope as a model for intervention in young people’s lives is how migrant youth take care of each other. And, if the last decade of U.S. politics has taught me anything, it’s that no one is coming to save us. We only have each other. We must look to one another, align our goals and intentions, activate our efforts, and protect and love one another. No one is coming to save us. For better or worse, the unaccompanied youth portrayed in this book seemed to have picked up on that very early on in their lives. They look to each other, align their goals and intentions, activate their efforts, and protect and love one another. To scale those efforts out, we need to include unaccompanied youth in conversations about the way forward and out of this crisis. We need to include long-settled youth like those in this book in discussions about how we can support today’s children.

These conversations would benefit school personnel, but ultimately, we all stand to gain.

Stephanie specializes in the study of international migration and immigrant integration, with particular interest in the experiences of Latin American-origin immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Over the last decade, Stephanie has focused her work on the migration and coming-of-age of unaccompanied children from Central America and Mexico in California and Texas. Throughout her research and writing, Stephanie explores the role of immigration policy in shaping the everyday lives of migrant children and their families, how immigrants and communities transform one another, and immigrants’ articulations of success and well-being within an increasingly unequal U.S. society. Stephanie’s first book, Sin Padres, Ni Papeles, takes on many of these issues.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of My Undocumented Life, its editors, or any other organization the author(s) may be affiliated with.

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Categories: Book Reviews

Tags: book review, books, Immigration, Research, unaccompanied, young adults