Transnational Trajectories of Fear: Youth in Migrant Families in the United States and in Mexico

Nation-states have long used fear as a tool for regulating migrant populations. In the United States, recent administrations employ threats of family separations, resulting in fears among migrants, and also members of their families and communities; fears are especially common among youth raised in mixed-status families, that is youth with and without U.S. citizenship whose family members experience some form of legal precarity. In this paper, we analyze the ways varying expressions of fears come to shape the lives of transnationally mobile children of Mexican migrants. We draw on two studies that collected interviews with youth living both in the United States (New York State) and in Mexico (State of Oaxaca). By decentering the nation-state, we show how fears transverse space – taking different forms when expressed from different places – and transverse time, reaching back into the past (through memories of past deportations) and into the future (determining plans and ambitions). U.S. immigration policies result in transnational trajectories of fears, with consequences for youth mobility trajectories, no matter where they live or their citizenship status.