Undocumented in the U.S. South: How Youth Navigate Racialization in Policy and School Contexts

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Undocumented in the U.S. South: How Youth Navigate Racialization in Policy and School Contexts

by Sophia Rodriguez

Rutgers University Press, 2025

ISBNs

Cloth: 978-1-9788-2883-4

Paper: 978-1-9788-2882-7

eISBN: 978-1-9788-2884-1 (ePub)

eISBN: 978-1-9788-2885-8 (PDF)

About the Book

Undocumented in the U.S. South is a rare look into the everyday realities of undocumented youth in K-12 public schools. In an anti-immigrant policy context, youth and their families navigate historical and current legacies and realities of segregation, racial discrimination, and inequality. With a deep three-year ethnographic study, hundreds of hours of observational research, interviews, and policy analysis, Sophia Rodriguez traces the lives of undocumented youth across multiple public school settings. Her research underscores how these youth are racialized through state policies, school and organizational practices, and everyday interactions with educators and peers. As the first study of its kind to combine this unique framework for analysis, Undocumented in the U.S. South sheds light on the challenges youth face in their everyday struggle to belong. Rodriguez invites us to consider youth experiences as central knowledge for improving educators’ awareness and school practice, while promoting policies that are humanizing and rooted in youth experience.

About the Author

SOPHIA RODRIGUEZ is an associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development in New York City. She is the coauthor of Race Frames in Education: Structuring Inequality and Opportunity in a Changing Educational Landscape.

Reviews

"Rodriguez adds to the burgeoning literature of how undocumented Latinx immigrants are navigating access to institutions like K-12 schools, higher education, and other social services. . . . It would behoove educators, especially those working in schools and communities who are experiencing demographic shifts or serve smaller Latinx immigrant communities, to engage with the work of Rodriguez. Given the heightened anti-immigrant sentiments across the nation, this book provides a roadmap to identify how racialization processes are infused in school structures, inform teacher practices, and, ultimately, (re)produce educational inequities."

— Anthropology & Education Quarterly

"Undocumented in the U.S. South fills a gap in what is known about the educational experiences of undocumented and recently arrived Central American immigrant youth in the South. The rich, meaningful stories within make the book come alive."— Emily R. Crawford, coeditor of Educational Leadership of Immigrants: Case Studies in Times of Change

"Rodriguez provides a timely and much-needed analysis of immigrant youths' experiences navigating education, racism, and inequality in the South."— Lauren Heidbrink, author of Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation