For the past three decades, U.S. immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive, focused on enforcement both at the southern border and across the country. A shift in emphasis from status regularization to criminalization has had rippling effects for families and communities. While we know much about how immigration enforcement impacts the undocumented, we know less about longstanding effects on U.S. citizens. In Surviving the ICE Age, sociologist Joanna Dreby draws on interviews with young adults with foreign-born parents to better understand what it was like to grow up during a time of heightened U.S. migratory control.

Dreby shows that a restrictive approach to immigration creates problems over time and across generations. These issues occur regardless of one’s citizenship status and go beyond deportations. Despite having pride in their heritage, her interviewees did not talk much about immigration. She refers to this unwillingness—and at times, inability—to speak about immigration as silencing. Silencing in a community or family is often intended to protect children, but this can leave them with little information about their backgrounds and status, leading to fear and anxiety instead. Self-silencing often resulted from traumatic experiences tied to enforcement episodes, which sometimes took the form of memory loss or emotional withholding. Dreby finds that experiences with the immigration system that disrupted relationships in a child’s household arising from family separations, moves, or changing roles in the family had especially long-term effects, causing, at times, ongoing mental health issues. Even the risk of immigration involvement left some young adults feeling vulnerable and undermined their sense of safety and security as U.S. citizens.

Dreby also highlights stories that offer hope. Young adults developed strategies to persevere, and children who grew up in communities and families that openly talked about migration felt empowered and fared much better, especially when they had access to resources, such as adequate food and shelter, mental health services, and community support. Dreby calls for policies and practices to mitigate the harms of restrictive migratory control on children’s wellbeing, such avoiding the arrest of parents in front of children and ensuring that U.S. citizen children’s interests are considered in immigration court without their direct involvement.

Surviving the ICE Age details the generational harms caused by U.S. immigration policy and offers suggestions for a better way forward.

JOANNA DREBY is professor of sociology at the University of Albany, State University of New York

Energy serves as the lifeblood of our daily experiences. It permeates virtually every aspect of our existence, facilitating nourishment, safety, and productivity. When affordability threatens energy’s availability, a family’s living situation can become untenable—too cold, too hot, too dark, and too often, unhealthy and unsafe. In Powerless, sociologists Diana Hernández and Jennifer Laird reveal the hidden hardship of “energy insecurity” – the inability to adequately meet household energy needs.

Approximately one in ten households in the U.S. are energy insecure and four in ten are at risk for energy insecurity. These statistics alone do not convey the acute pain of utility shutoffs, or the relentless toll of chronic energy hardships marked by difficult choices and harsh living conditions. Drawing on survey data and interviews with one hundred energy-insecure individuals and families, Hernández and Laird detail the experience of energy insecurity. Individuals and families suffering from energy insecurity endure economic hardships, such as difficulty paying utility bills, utility debt, and disconnection from utility services. They also struggle with physical challenges, such as poor housing conditions and poor or dysfunctional heating and cooling systems. They are often forced to make difficult choices about what bills to pay. These decisions are sometimes referred to as “heat or eat?” choices, as families cannot afford to pay for heating and food at the same time. Energy insecure individuals and families employ a variety of strategies to keep energy costs down to avoid having to make these hard choices. This includes deliberate underconsumption of energy, enduring physical discomfort, and using dangerous alternatives such as open flames, ovens, or space heaters to try to maintain a comfortable temperature in their home. To be energy insecure is to suffer. Despite the heavy toll of energy insecurity, most people confront these difficulties behind closed doors, believing it is a private matter. Thus, the enormous social crisis of energy insecurity goes unnoticed.

Hernández and Laird argue that household energy is a basic human right and detail policies and practices that would expand access to consistent, safe, clean, and affordable energy. Their proposals include improving the current energy safety net, which is limited and often does not serve the most energy insecure due to stringent program requirements and administrative burdens. They also suggest redesigning rates to accommodate income, promoting enrollment and expansion of discount programs, reforming utility disconnection policies, improving energy literacy, and ensuring an equitable shift to renewable energy resources.

Powerless creates a comprehensive picture of the complex social and environmental issue of energy insecurity and shows how energy equity is not just an aspiration but an achievable reality.

DIANA HERNÁNDEZ is an associate professor of sociomedical sciences, Columbia University

JENNIFER LAIRD is an assistant professor in the department of sociology, Lehman College

Social movements—organized efforts by relatively powerless people to change society—can result in legal and policy changes, such as laws protecting same-sex marriage and tax rebates for solar energy. However, movements also change people’s beliefs, values, and everyday behavior. Such changes may help bring about new policies or take place in the absence of new policy, yet we still know little about when and why they occur. In Changing Minds, sociologists Francesca Polletta and Edwin Amenta ask why movements have sometimes had fast and far-reaching cultural influence.

Polletta and Amenta examine the trajectories of U.S. social movements, including the old-age pension movements of the 1930s and 1940s, the Black rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the women’s movement of the 1970s, right-wing movements in the 1980s and 1990s, and the environmental movement up to the present, to determine when, why, and how social movements change culture. They find that influential movements are featured in the news, but not only in the news. Movement perspectives may appear also in opinion and commentary outlets, on television talk shows and dramas, in movies, stand-up comedy, and viral memes. Popular culture producers remake movement messages as they transmit them, sometimes in ways that make those messages compelling. For example, while the news largely ignored feminists’ challenge to inequality in the home, popular cultural outlets turned “liberation” into a resonant demand for women’s right to self-fulfillment outside the home and within it.  Widespread attention to the movement may lead people to change their minds individually. But more substantial change is likely when companies, schools, and other organizations outside government strive to get out in front of a newly legitimate issue, whether environmental sustainability or racial equity, by adopting movement-supportive norms and practices. Eventually, ideas associated with a movement may become a new common sense—though not always the ideas that the movement intended.

Throughout Changing Minds, Polletta and Amenta provide activists with strategies for getting their message heard and acted on. They suggest how movement actors can get into the news as political players or experts rather than lawbreakers or zealots. They show when it makes sense for activists to work with popular cultural producers and when they should create their own cultural outlets. They explain why the routes to cultural influence have changed and why urging people to take one easy step to save the planet can do more harm than good.

Changing Minds is a fascinating exploration of why and how some social movements have caused profound shifts in society.

FRANCESCA POLLETTA is Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine

EDWIN AMENTA is Professor of Sociology, University of California, Irvine

In the first two decades of the 21st century, more than two million Mexican migrants returned to Mexico from the United States. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people who returned to Mexico was so large that, for the first time in at least fifty years, more people entered Mexico from the United States than entered the United States from Mexico. Many of these migrants were destined for urban areas, and we know little about how they fare after they return to cities. In The Returned, sociologists Claudia Masferrer, Erin R. Hamilton, and Nicole Denier examine the experiences of returned migrants in Mexico City, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

Masferrer, Hamilton, and Denier draw on interviews with former U.S. migrants living in Mexico City to better understand the experience of return migration to urban areas. Each of the migrants they spoke with lived in the United States for long periods with noncitizen status during the last four decades. During this time, U.S. immigration policy became increasingly focused on restriction and enforcement, which made it difficult for migrants to safely move back and forth across the border for work or to visit family without documentation. The authors find that upon their return, migrants in Mexico City felt disoriented and lost and had difficulty adapting to a massive urban environment where there is little support for returnees. They struggled to translate their work experience from their time in the U.S. to find quality jobs. Additionally, many found their family lives upended as they reunited with or formed families in the U.S.. Some found themselves separated from family members still in the U.S. with no ability to legally visit them. Others brought their families back to Mexico, some of whom were U.S. citizens and had never been to Mexico before. They, too, struggled to adapt and integrate to life in Mexico City.

The authors use the experiences of return migrants to discuss policies and practices that would improve their lives and ease their reintegration. To help with the disorientation they experience, returnees proposed ongoing psychological support with mental health professionals who have knowledge and training in the social and legal issues that return migrants face. Return migrants also advocated for policies to enhance skill matching, job creation, and entrepreneurship, as many felt the occupational skills they developed in the U.S. were undervalued in Mexico. To address family separation, returnees argued for legal and policy reform to accommodate family reunification.

The Returned is an illuminating account of the difficulties faced by return migrants and their families in Mexico City.

CLAUDIA MASFERRER is an associate professor, Centre for Demographic, Urban, and Environmental Studies, El Colegio de México

ERIN R. HAMILTON is a professor of sociology, University of California, Davis

NICOLE DENIER is an associate professor, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta

“Michael Lens provides an unprecedented systematic overview of economic and social conditions in Black neighborhoods for the past half century. By moving beyond the pathos narrative that has characterized much of the scholarship on Black neighborhoods, Where the Hood At? will help us to understand the Black neighborhood in all its complexity and diversity. Where the Hood At? is a must-read for students of neighborhoods, urban planners and policymakers, and the Black experience.”
—LANCE FREEMAN, James W. Effron University Professor of City and Regional Planning and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

“Where the Hood At? describes in impressively comprehensive terms how Black neighborhoods in America have evolved over the last half century. Rigorous statistical documentation is clothed with an accessible writing style. This is a welcome study addressing a critical gap in scholarship related to racial segregation, neighborhood effects, and ethnographies of place. It reminds us why Black neighborhoods, not just individuals, are an important locus for analyzing issues of racial equity.”
—GEORGE C. GALSTER, Clarence Hilberry Professor of Urban Affairs and Distinguished Professor, emeritus, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Wayne State University

“Michael Lens has produced a comprehensive profile that describes the trajectory of the Black neighborhood in American cities over five decades. It is a much-needed and authoritative addition to our understanding of the Black neighborhood in American cities. Lens’s work provides ample fodder for policy debates ranging from integration and gentrification to the relative importance of place-based policymaking. We will be relying on Lens’s analysis of the Black neighborhood for a long time to come. Where the Hood At? challenges our assumptions about Black neighborhoods in American cities and their paths over the past fifty years. Just as importantly, the comprehensiveness of Lens’s analysis provides a clear and robust foundation for thinking about the future of these neighborhoods.”
—EDWARD GOETZ, professor and director, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota

Substantial gaps exist between Black Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., most glaringly Whites, across virtually all quality-of-life indicators. Despite strong evidence that neighborhood residence affects life outcomes, we lack a comprehensive picture of Black neighborhood conditions and how they have changed over time. In Where the Hood At? urban planning and public policy scholar Michael C. Lens examines the characteristics and trajectories of Black neighborhoods across the U.S. over the fifty years since the Fair Housing Act.

Hip hop music was born out of Black neighborhoods in the 1970s and has evolved alongside them. In Where the Hood At? Lens uses rap’s growth and influence across the country to frame discussions about the development and conditions of Black neighborhoods. Lens finds that social and economic improvement in Black neighborhoods since the 1970s has been slow. However, how well Black neighborhoods are doing varies substantially by region. Overall, Black neighborhoods in the South are doing well and growing quickly. Black neighborhoods in the Midwest and the Rust Belt, on the other hand, are particularly disadvantaged. The welfare of Black neighborhoods is related not only to factors within neighborhoods, such as the unemployment rate, but also to characteristics of the larger metropolitan area, such as overall income inequality. Lens finds that while gentrification is increasingly prevalent, it is growing slowly, and is not
as pressing an issue as public discourse would make it seem. Instead, concentrated disadvantage is by far the most common and pressing problem in Black neighborhoods.

Lens argues that Black neighborhoods represent urban America’s greatest policy failures, and that recent housing policies have only had mild success. He provides several suggestions for policies with the goalof uplifting Black neighborhoods. One radical proposal is enacting policies and programs, such as tax breaks for entrepreneurs or other small business owners, that would encourage Black Americans to move backto the South. Black Americans migrating South would have a better chance at moving to an advantaged Black neighborhood as improving neighborhood location is higher when moving across regions. It would also help Black Americans expand their political and economic power. He also suggests a regional focus for economic development policies, particularly in the Midwest where Black neighborhoods are struggling the most. He also calls for building more affordable housing in Black suburbs. Black poverty is lower in suburbs than in central cities, so increasing housing in Black suburbs would allow Black households to relocate to more advantaged neighborhoods, which research has shown leads to improved life outcomes.

Where the Hood At? is a remarkable and comprehensive account of Black neighborhoods that helps us to better understand the places and conditions that allow them flourish or impedes their advancement.

MICHAEL C. LENS is a professor in the Luskin School of Public Affairs, departments of urban planning and public policy, University of California, Los Angeles.

“In this sequel to Mexican New York, Robert C. Smith solidifies his reputation as an intimate interpreter of social change over the life course. Dreams Achieved and Denied tells a subtle story about the upward mobility of children of Mexican immigrants striving to keep their side of the immigrant family bargain. This is a must-read to understand the experiences of the largest immigrant group in the United States.”
—David FitzGerald, Gildred Chair in U.S.-Mexican Relations and professor of sociology, University of California, San Diego

“The culmination of a two-decade study of immigrant youngsters, Dreams Achieved and Denied exemplifies the power of research that truly matters. With rigor and passion, Robert C. Smith captures experiences deeply significant to policymakers and to all who care about the multifaceted American journey.”
—Patricia Fernández-Kelly, professor of sociology, Princeton University

“A valuable contribution to contemporary debates of social mobility in the United States, Dreams Achieved and Denied shows in great detail the mechanisms that promote upward mobility and those that tragically curtail it. Based on an impressive longitudinal study, this remarkable book offers a worm’s-eye view into the experiences of adult children of Mexican immigrants pursuing their dreams in New York City. Persuasively argued and rigorously researched, this book is a timely and socially important work that deserves a wide readership.”
—Roberto G. Gonzales, Richard Perry University Professor of Sociology and Education, University of Pennsylvania

U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City have achieved perhaps the biggest single jump in mobility in American immigration history. In 2020, 42 percent of second-generation U.S.-born Mexican men and 49 percent of U.S.-born Mexican women in the city had graduated from college–versus a 13-14-percent second-generation college graduation rate for most other places in recent decades. How did this happen? In Dreams Achieved and Denied, sociologist Robert Courtney Smith (Graduate Center, City University of New York) examines the laws, policies, and individual and family practices that promoted–and inhibited–their social mobility.

For over twenty years, Smith followed the lives and mobility of nearly one hundred children of Mexican immigrants in New York City.  Immigrant-inclusive and mobility-promoting measures here include enabling undocumented people to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates and the city’s subway and school choice systems, which enabled students to attend better schools or take opportunities outside their neighborhoods.

Smith finds that keeping the immigrant bargain – whereby children of immigrants redeem their parents’ sacrifice by doing well in school, helping their parents and siblings, and becoming “good” people (in their parents’ words) – helped them achieve better adult outcomes and lives. Having mentors, picking academically strong schools and friends, and using second chance mechanisms also promoted mobility. However, lacking legal status blocked mobility, by preventing others from benefiting from these same mobility-promoting policies.

Dreams Achieved and Denied deeply analyzes the historic upward mobility of U.S.-born Mexicans in New York City.

ROBERT COURTNEY SMITH is a professor of sociology, immigration studies and public affairs at the CUNY Graduate Center

“Timely, meticulously researched and argued, Reunited deftly weaves the voices of Central American youth migrants into cutting-edge scholarly arguments to produce a compelling account that is inspiring, humane, and powerful. Essential reading for scholars, students, policymakers, and anyone interested in understanding the so-called root causes of Central American migration.”
—CECILIA MENJÍVAR, Dorothy L. Meier Chair in Social Equities and professor of sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

“Reunited captures the full complexity of contemporary Central American migration to the United States, explaining both the structural and historical forces propelling it and the ways in which families are surviving in their midst. This important book humanizes one of the most politically and morally challenging issues of our time.”
—LEAH C. SCHMALZBAUER, Karen and Brian Conway ‘80, P’18 Presidential Teaching Professor of American Studies and Sociology, Amherst College

“Reunited is an essential account of the nefarious effects of inhumane U.S. immigration policy that separates Central American children from their immigrant parents. Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks offer a nuanced and compelling portrayal of the enduring toll of these separations on child well-being and family ties, as well as the challenges and emotional labor involved in ‘picking up the pieces’ once children migrate to the United States to reunite with their parents, while also suggesting reforms that would aid their integration in U.S. society.”
—CHIARA GALLI, assistant professor, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago

Over the last dozen years, an increasing number of children from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala began arriving without parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. In many cases, the parents had left for the United States years earlier. In Reunited sociologists Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks explain the reasons for Central American youth migration, describe the journey, and document how minors experienced separation from their families and their subsequent reunification.

In interviews with migrant youth, their sponsors, and social services practitioners in and around Washington, D.C., Castañeda and Jenks find that these minors migrate on their own for three main reasons: gang violence, lack of educational and economic opportunity, and a longing for family reunification. The authors note that youth who feel comfortable leaving and have feelings of belonging upon arrival integrate quickly and easily while those who experience trauma in their home countries and on their way to the United States face more challenges.

Castañeda and Jenks recount these young migrants’ journey to the U.S. border, detailing the difficulties passing through Mexico, their encounters with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, and staying in shelters while their sponsorship, placement, and departure are arranged. The authors also describe the tensions the youth face when they reunite with family members they may view as strangers. Despite their biological, emotional, and financial bonds to these relatives, the youth must learn how to relate to new authority figures and decide whether or how to follow their rules.

The experience of migrating can have a lasting effect on the mental health of young migrants. Although Castañeda and Jenks find that Central American youths’ mental health improves after migrating to the United States, they remain at risk of further problems. They are likely to have lived through traumatizing experiences that inhibit their integration. Difficulty integrating, in turn, creates new stressors that exacerbate PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Consequently, schools and social service organizations are crucial, the authors argue, for enhancing youth migrants’ sense of belonging and their integration into their new communities. Bilingual programs, Spanish-speaking PTA groups, message boards, mentoring of immigrant children, and after-school programs for members of reunited families are all helpful in supporting immigrant youth as they learn English, finish high school, apply to college, and find jobs.

Offering a complex exploration of youth migration and family reunification, Reunited provides a moving account of how young Central American migrants make the journey north and ultimately reintegrate with their families in the United States.

ERNESTO CASTAÑEDA is director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University.

DANIEL JENKS is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania.

“In Structured Luck, Onoso Imoagene gives us an unparalleled look into the U.S. Diversity Visa Program, revealing its far-reaching effects on the life trajectories of migrants and its role as a catalyst of the migration industry in countries of origin. Through rich interviews and careful institutional analysis in the United States, Nigeria, and Ghana, she offers us a critical assessment of the program’s reputation as a windfall lottery and shows us that luck, in this case, is painstakingly made through strategic responses to policy constraints.”
Natasha Iskander, James Weldon Johnson Professor of Urban Planning and Public Service, New York University

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program is a lottery that awards winners from underrepresented countries the chance to apply for legal permanent residence in the United States. Most lottery winners think of themselves as lucky, viewing the win as an opportunity to pursue better lives for themselves and their families. In Structured Luck, sociologist Onoso Imoagene uses immigrants’ stories to show how the program’s design often leads to their exploitation in their origin countries, the interruption of their education, and reduced potential once they are in the United States.

Combining ethnographic observation in Africa and interviews with over one hundred immigrants from Ghana and Nigeria, Imoagene demonstrates that the visa program is a process of “structured luck,” from how people hear about the lottery, who registers for it, and who participates in it to the application requirements for the visa. In Ghana and Nigeria, people often learn about the lottery through friends, colleagues, or relatives who persuade them to enter for the perceived benefits of receiving a visa: opportunities for upward mobility, permanent legal status, and the ability to bring along family members. Though anyone can enter the lottery, not everyone who wins obtains a visa. The visa application process requires proof of a high school diploma or artisan skills, a medical exam, a criminal background check, an interview with U.S. consular officers, and payment of fees. Such requirements have led to the growth of visa entrepreneurs, who often charge exorbitant fees to steer immigrants through the process. Visa recipients who were on track to obtain university degrees at home often leave in the middle of their studies for the United States but struggle to continue their education due to high U.S. tuition costs. And though their legal status allows them to escape the demoralizing situations that face the undocumented, these immigrants lack the social support that the government sometimes provides for refugees and other migrants. Ultimately, Imoagene notes, the real winner of the visa lottery is not the immigrants themselves but the United States, which benefits from their relatively higher levels of education. Consequently, she argues, the U.S. must do more to minimize the visa program’s negative consequences.

Structured Luck illuminates the trauma, resilience, and determination of immigrants who come to the United States through the Diversity Visa Program and calls for the United States to develop policies that will better integrate them into society.

ONOSO IMOAGENE is associate professor of social research and public policy at New York University, Abu Dhabi.

"When Care Is Conditional brings together trenchant analysis and deeply moving humanity to understand the barriers faced by Latinx immigrants and their strategies for well-being as they negotiate conditional care in the United States. Through nuanced research and the voices of ordinary people, Dani Carrillo shows how immigration policy, residential location, and, especially, gender shape who can get help, how much, and under what conditions. Beautifully written, this book is a must-read for scholars, policymakers, and philanthropists dedicated to advancing everyone’s well-being."
—IRENE BLOEMRAAD, Class of 1951 Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

"When Care Is Conditional is a critical reassessment of the failure of social protection in the United States through the lens of low-wage immigrants. Dani Carrillo offers a bottom-up examination of the patchwork of safety net institutions and the perennial difficulty of accessing them. In doing so, she disrupts the idyllic view of the suburbs and reveals how immigrant networks and civil society try to help fill in the gap. More than just a structural accounting, this book centers the importance of cultural narratives and stigmas in reinforcing 'conditional care' and in doing so helps us understand the dynamics of exclusion for all vulnerable racialized communities."
—SHANNON GLEESON, Edmund Ezra Day Professor and chair, Department of Labor Relations, Law, and History, Cornell University

"Dani Carrillo deftly weaves policy history with personal narratives of Latinx immigrants to lay bare how restrictive immigration policies undermine the well-being of families that too often are living in the shadows of our communities and society. The book comes at a critical time in our national, state, and local dialogue around immigration and social policy. When Care Is Conditional is critical reading for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners alike."
—SCOTT W. ALLARD, Associate Dean for Research and Engagement and Daniel J. Evans Endowed Professor of Social Policy, Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington

From its inception, the public safety net in the United States has excluded many people because of their race, gendered roles, or other factors. As a result, they must prove their moral worthiness to get resources for themselves and their families. In When Care Is Conditional, sociologist Dani Carrillo reveals the ramifications of this conditional safety net by focusing on one particularly vulnerable population: undocumented immigrants.

Through in-depth interviews with Latinx immigrants in northern California, Carrillo examines three circumstances—place, gender, and immigration status—that intersect to influence an individual’s access to health care, food assistance, and other benefits. She demonstrates that place of residence affects undocumented immigrants’ ability to get care since more services are available in urban areas, where many immigrants cannot afford to live, than suburban areas, where public transportation is limited. She also shows that while both men and women who are undocumented have difficulty obtaining care, men often confront more challenges. Undocumented women who are pregnant or mothers are eligible for some government safety net programs and rely on informal coethnic networks or a “guiding figure”—a relative, friend, neighbor, or coworker—who explains how to get care and makes them feel confident in accessing it. Most undocumented men, in contrast, are not eligible for public programs except in a medical emergency and often lack someone to guide them directly to care. Men sometimes steer one another to jobs through worker centers—where they may learn about various services and take advantage of those that increase their employability, like English or computer classes—but a culture of masculinity leads them to downplay medical problems and seek health care only in a crisis.  

As undocumented immigrants navigate this exclusionary system, Carrillo finds that they resist the rhetoric stigmatizing them as lawbreakers. Dismissing the importance of “papers” and highlighting their work ethic, they question the fairness of U.S. immigration policies and challenge ideas about who deserves care.

Carrillo offers concrete recommendations, such as improving labor conditions and reexamining benefit eligibility, to increase access to care for not only undocumented immigrants but also people who have been excluded because of their race, criminal record, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability. She argues that working with and across populations creates a powerful form of solidarity in advocating for inclusive care.

When Care Is Conditional provides compelling insights into how safety net and immigration policies intersect to affect people’s everyday lives and calls for a cultural shift so that the United States can provide unconditional care for all.

DANI CARRILLO is a senior researcher and civic technologist.

American Educational Studies Association Critic's Choice Book Award Winner

"In Meanings of Mobility, Leah Schmalzbauer carefully and in precise detail documents the costs—psychic and embodied—of children of immigrants’ class mobility through elite educational pathways. Driven by love and a desire to make good on parents’ sacrifices, poor and working-class students of color understand that academic excellence only leads to financial success when they can proficiently enact the cultural norms of privileged whiteness. Readers get to witness through these students’ own accounts how they make sense of the tough choices an elite college education presents: the spectrum runs from returning to community to contribute to social justice to leaning into racial capitalism to acquire wealth."
—LEISY J. ABREGO, professor and chair, Chicana/o and Central American Studies, UCLA

"A compassionate and detailed exploration of how young adult children of Latin American immigrants navigate a privileged college environment. Leah Schmalzbauer follows the stories of a new generation of young adults who attend a top liberal arts college, seeking an education in elite spaces while balancing family obligations and the stress of the COVID pandemic. Highly informative and deeply moving, Meanings of Mobility sheds light on how higher education works for a select group, and what needs to change to provide such access to others."
—JOANNA DREBY, professor of sociology, University at Albany

"With penetrating prose, Leah Schmalzbauer provides an intimate portrait of how poverty shapes undergraduate life at even the wealthiest institutions of higher education. Moreover, she forces us to grapple with the simple yet overlooked fact that students do not come to college alone; families come to college. Through revealing interviews with students and their families, Meanings of Mobility outlines the pitfalls and promises of pursuing higher education for the most vulnerable members of society. And with care and attention born of a dedicated scholar, Schmalzbauer provides insights into what can be done to make our institutions not just accessible, but inclusive."
—ANTHONY A. JACK, assistant professor of education, Harvard University

Over the past twenty years, elite colleges and universities enacted policies that reshaped the racial and class composition of their campuses, and over the past decade, Latinos’ college attendance notably increased. While discussions on educational mobility often focus on its perceived benefits – that it will ultimately lead to social and economic mobility – less attention is paid to the process of “making it” and the challenges low-income youth experience when navigating these elite spaces. In Meanings of Mobility, sociologist Leah C. Schmalzbauer explores the experiences of low-income Latino youth attending highly selective, elite colleges.

To better understand these experiences, Schmalzbauer draws on interviews with 60 low-income Latino youth who graduated or were set to graduate from Amherst College, one of the most selective private colleges in the United States, as well as their parents and siblings. The vast majority of these students were the first in their immigrant families to go to college in the U.S. She finds that while most of the students believed attending Amherst provided them with previously unimaginable opportunities, adjusting to life on campus came with significant challenges. Many of the students Schmalzbauer spoke with had difficulties adapting to the cultural norms at Amherst as well as with relating to their non-Latino, non-low-income peers. The challenges these students faced were not limited to life on campus. As they attempted to adapt to Amherst, many felt distanced from the family and friends they left behind who could not understand the new challenges they faced.

The students credit their elite education for access to extraordinary educational and employment opportunities. However, their experiences while in college and afterward reveal that the relationship between educational and social mobility is much more complicated and less secure than popular conversations about the “American Dream” suggest. Many students found that their educational attainment was not enough to erase the core challenges of growing up in a marginalized immigrant family: many were still poor, faced racism, and those who were undocumented or had undocumented family members still feared deportation. The challenges they faced were only intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Schmalzbauer suggests ways institutions of higher education can better support low-income Latino students and lower the emotional price of educational mobility, including the creation of immigration offices on campus to provide programming and support for undocumented students and their families. She recommends educating staff to better understand the centrality of family for these students and the challenges they face, as well as educating more privileged students about inequality and the life experiences of their marginalized peers.

Meanings of Mobility provides compelling insights into the difficulties faced and the resilience demonstrated by low-income Latinos pursuing educational and social mobility.

LEAH C. SCHMALZBAUER is Karen and Brian Conway ’80, P’18 Presidential Teaching Professor of American Studies and Sociology, Amherst College