HEIDBRINK--CLARK

Apparently I never actually posted the blog comment I wrote earlier this week, so here it is (belated):

Lauren Heidbrink’s article Recasting the Agency of Unaccompanied Youth brings up many important issues about illegal migrant children and how our immigration laws affect them. She notes that “contemporary United States immigration law still frames immigrant children as objects, recognizing the identity of a child only inasmuch as that child is a derivative of the actions, legal status, and presence of his or her parent(s)” (2). This is a very interesting concept that does not make a whole lot of sense to me, especially considering how “grown up” many of these migrant children are. In her study of Mario’s journey to (and in) America, it is especially easy to recognize how much these young children are actually treated much like adults in our government system. The detainees are treated very much like prisoners, wearing standard-issue fluorescent colored sweats to be better identified and flimsy black flip flops so they are not able to run very fast down the gravel road if they actually are able to escape. This back and fourth between a child and an adult is very confusing… shouldn’t they just stick to one idea or the other?

Good luck!

Good luck with the papers and the rest of your finals period! I find Harry Potter an excellent reducer of stress so if anyone needs to borrow one of the books for an emergency Potter read, please let me know! : )

Has been lovely having class with you this semester!

Danielle

Heidbrink-Duerr

I thought the way Heidbrink illustrated how “unaccompanied youth,” such as Mario, are shaping the social and political landscape was very interesting. Laws, jobs, and policy have been spawned as a result of the presence of unaccompanied immigrant children in this country. Their decision to illegally immigrate has been a social and political force. She presents a new way of analyzing youth and culture, rather than looking at the way youth works against social structures, as in delinquency, or the way they are influenced by these structures, such as consumerism, Heibrink chooses to look at the way these structures are actually shaped by the existence of the immigrant children. Mario’s status as an “unaccompanied alien child” makes him an “impossible subject who cannot exist in juridical accounts of personhood due to his illegal presence in the United States and his paradoxical position as an alone but dependent minor” (p.3) his migrant illegality is “simultaneously a social reality and a legal impossibility-a subject barred from citizen ship and without rights.” (p.3)

Heidbrink - Fuller

Heidbrink brings up a lot of important issues about children who give up their kinship ties in order to gain legal status in the States, thus legally severing kinship ties. However, it would be interesting to see if these kinship ties are sometimes “unofficially” reconnected. How do the kin who are severed see the family member who chose to cut the ties? Is all communication actually cut off, or do these lines stay open despite legal titles?

Another point I found interesting was that the role of children – traditionally a very dependent group on their parent and confined to a household, Heidbrink depicts how children’s roles are becoming very dynamic and more involved in the social sphere that was once reserved for adults. “[T]hese historical reforms marked a shift in allegiance that remains with us today – a child’s ‘highest duty was no longer obedience to parents, but preparation for citizenship’” (p2). How does this affect the household structure? Does it strain kinship ties in some cases? We saw that Mario did not believe in testifying against his family, despite negligent history. In the States, however, it seems like a very different perspective is taken, advocated through the media and social institutions put in place.

Heidbrink- Wharton

Reading Mario's story made me wonder how awful the average immigrant child's situation must be to drive him to sever his ties of kinship and apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile status. Mario was abused by his step-father and gang members in his community, but remained unwilling to legally sever his kinship ties in exchange for US citizenship. From my perspective, this decision makes sense, as for a child (or any citizen) it seems that it would be quite daunting to find oneself alone, detained in a foreign country, with no real understanding of what one's future will hold. In this situation, to then legally end the only connection that one has to any sort of familial network, seems like an impossible choice to make.
It is a shame that such an intelligent person as Mario fell victim to gang violence, and that seemingly the rest of the community did little to protect him, even though he was a valued worker and student. To better understand Mario's situation, I would like more information on his relationships with his mother and siblings, employers, and teachers. I would also like to know more about his distant uncle in the United States. It seems very possible that the situation Mario would face in the United States would be no better than the one which he is attempting to flee from. What factors, then, are considered most when immigrant children are deciding to leave their homes? For example, was Mario's mother encouraging him to migrate so that he could raise money for the family, or because she was truly concerned for his wellbeing in the home community? The factors going into the decision-making process for a migrant child leaving the home could shed some light on whether the child should be considered a dependent or an independent.
On a different trajectory, it seems as if through Special Immigrant Juvenile status the state replaces the family network, that the United States government should provide a significant amount of support to a child under this status. If a child is willing to give up the only kinship network he has, what he is receiving in exchange should at least help him gain access to food, shelter, and education in the United States. In other words, it should offer him with possibilities that his forfeited network did not. Therefore, I wonder- what is a child under Special Immigrant Juvenile status's life really like? Does achieving this status justify forfeiting the bonds to one's family?

Heidbrink--Wilson

I think it's a little presumptive to argue that the court deliberately sought "to protect and provide for this inherently vulnerable population" as its main motivation for enacting the reforms (1). I'm sure that that's the public front for the campaign but the measure would only have been politically feasible if the emphasis was on the expected gains in tax revenue from a new group of tax payers (and yes, most children wouldn't earn enough to be required to file taxes, but it's the principle of securing the loyalty of a new pool of payers, not to mention the gains from those who could actually pay taxes--baby-sitting money nearly became taxable income a few years ago, to give some idea of the government's propensity for inventing new ways to gain revenue). Diminishing the rights of parents who are not overtly abusing children is a hard sell to some legislators, though the reforms could make parents less likely to force a child into a factory due to the lack of incentive. However, I'm not sure how effective the reforms would be as a deterrent for parents to take advantage of children because a parent who could pressure a child into factory work is just as likely to pressure a child into giving up her income even if the law grants the child ownership of earnings. Child workers will remain an issue because if a household relies on a child's income, the child would probably find a way to provide if committed to the family--the reform could just encourage illegitimate forms of work or work that takes place after hours. And I do admit that the state does have a vested interest in a healthy population, and not purely for pecuniary reasons. A healthy, thriving population will not only produce more but be more likely to engage in civic activity i.e. voting, civil service, etc. The child remains a subject, however--just of a different parent, more furtive in her intentions.

I digress--was intending to discuss unaccompanied children but got caught up in the policy implications and some presumptions of my own. I was particularly struck by the image of Mario being dressed in a manner that would elicit sympathy from the court (13). Being told that the only way to get through important channels is to act a certain, if not insincere way, could be a blow to agency--a challenge to know oneself enough to be able to emerge without lasting effects or permanent changes. The court is a theatre in this way, just as effective as a film or West End production at setting a stage, calling upon a specific cast, remaking the participants, and presenting a message to an audience. The child who can recognise the falsity of a situation or when he is being manipulated already regains some of his agency.

(Sorry Lauren--I'm citing you! It's only a class-wide circulation, however! ^__^ )

Heidbrink - Bao

After reading this weeks's paper on youth and law, I find myself intrigued by the idea of agency and children. The idea that these illegral child migrants have to "play a part" in order to gain a certain level of accpetance into a country can clearly have its benefits and its downsides. The benefits, of course, would be entrance into America, but the downsides seem to have a much deeper pyschological imapact. Especially if we are looking at family and networks, these children are being forced to give up their identities as individuals within these units. How, then, do they begin to conceptualize the rest of the world? What kind of "culture" is formed by these children who are now dependents of the state? Is their "family" the state board and the shelter that they reside in? This raises further questions about the way in which they envision themselves as belonging (or perhaps not belonging) to the new society in which they live and how they imagine their futures. To what degree to they have autonomy over their lives or are they forever dependent on the state to dictate their actions and the boundaries by which they must live?

Nastacio-Heidbrink

In "Recasting the Agency of Unaccompanied Youth", Lauren Heidbrink discusses the idea of kinship ties and how illegal children are often put in the position where they have to chose between their family and the state. For example, she uses Mario as an example. It is interesting to note that although Mario's dad abused him, when he was captured as an illegal alien he refused to tell the court about it. He said, "I just can't say those bad things about my family to a room of people. You do not do that. They are my family." Even though his dad abused him, he still felt a sense of loyalty and connection towards his family. It was also interesting to note that although laws in the United States do not regard children as property, immigration laws are still framing children as objects. The identity of the child is only depended not their legal status and their parents actions. This seems as if it would make it difficult for these children to know who to stay loyal to: their family or the state. Why should children have to be in the position to have to choose?

Heidbrink_Marcus

Two issues in Heibrink’s article struck me as particularly important for our discussions of kinship, household, and vulnerability. The first is the legal state of aconsanguinity imposed by the Special Immigrant Juvenile visa, by which migrant children, to become sole wards of the state, must sever all kinship ties with parents and siblings, and cannot petition for relatives to immigrate to the US. This stipulation is based on the purported abuse and abandonment of the child by his family, which as Heidbrink says of the migrant she interviewed, “was not only emotionally inaccurate but also undermined his personal and financial commitment to his mother and siblings.” The emotional self-compromise of such a law is deeply reprehensible, and what is more, negates what for most people is the whole purpose of migration—to remit funds to families and communities back home. In this sense, I would be very interested to learn more about the impact of SIJ on the financial commitment of migrants to their families- are there any restrictions on remittances, contact, or visits to home communities? To what extent does SIJ impose a practical, if also symbolic, “cutting of the network?”

A second point to draw from the reading is the important role children can play in household support, management, and decision-making. Heidbrink urges greater attention to and recognition of the agency of children in shaping their life-worlds and everyday interactions. In light of the very phenomenon by which migrant children can become the primary sources of financial support for their families, we must consider 1) how children in any context can play crucial and active roles in household dynamics, and 2) how household dynamics, such as powers of decision making and relative autonomy, may change when children become primary earners. Overall, we must question the assumption of children as merely receivers of care, and consider how they may both provide care as well as shape what that care consists of.