Constrained Inclusion

Abstract

Spanish

This article examines the ways in which citizenship status uniquely shapes both the access and persistence of undocumented community college students in the Central Valley of California. Drawing on more than 2 years of qualitative fieldwork, it is argued that undocumented community college students navigate an institutional landscape of “constrained inclusion,” characterized by a disconnect between the promise of inclusion embodied in recent legislation and the reality that citizenship status continues to encumber their educational experiences.

Keywords

undocumented students community college access persistence California higher education immigration

Introduction

When Belen reflects on her experience at her local community college, it is with a mix of frustration and resignation. Although she was a promising high school student, being undocumented means that community college was the only affordable route available for her to continue her education. Still, grateful for the opportunity, she was determined to make the most of the experience. A series of events wore her down, and when I speak with her on a warm spring day, the frustrations of the previous 2 years are apparent. Misinformation about what classes are transferable, experiences of racism in the classroom, a hostile climate toward undocumented students, and the pressures of working full-time, going to school full-time, and fulfilling her familial responsibilities as both a daughter and older sister have taken a toll on Belen. Despite her hard work, she is still far from eligible to transfer to a 4-year university, and once she is eligible, she cannot imagine a way she will actually be able to afford it.

Belen graduated high school the year the California DREAM Act went into effect; she was in the first cohort of students who stood to benefit from this historic legislation. However, nearly 3 years later, there are indications that the legislation that promised to create an easier path toward higher education for undocumented students in California has not entirely lived up to these hopes. Belen says,

I thought once the laws changed, it would be more like . . . the people in the financial aid office would be more knowledgeable about stuff, but they are like “What are you talking about? AB540 student? What’s that?” . . . And I know it’s supposed to be easier now, you know, for undocumented students to go to college, but it doesn’t feel very easy. (Belen M., personal communication, February 12, 2014)

Belen came of college-age amid a shifting political terrain in her home state of California, where she has lived since immigrating to the United States at the age of 11. New statewide legislation has passed in recent years, ushering in a set of policies that have been nationally hailed as a model of support for undocumented students. However, as the first generation of students navigate this new political and educational terrain, some fractures are becoming visible. I find that though the undocumented student movement has secured important victories on federal and state levels, significant barriers to higher education for undocumented youth persist. This article illuminates the unique challenges faced by undocumented community college students in California’s agricultural Central Valley, a group of young people who have been marginalized in the broader body of literature about undocumented college students, deprioritized both by geography (because they are located in the often-overlooked agricultural belt of the state) and constructions of prestige (because they are community college students, not yet in the 4-year university system). This study seeks to illuminate the experiences of students at that important axis of marginalization.

Drawing on more than 2 years of qualitative fieldwork and 30 interviews with undocumented community college students in the Central Valley, I argue that undocumented community college students navigate an institutional landscape of “constrained inclusion,” characterized by a disconnect between the promise of inclusion embodied by recent legislation and the reality that citizenship status continues to fundamentally encumber their educational experiences. This article examines the ways in which citizenship status uniquely shapes both the access and persistence of undocumented community college students in the Central Valley despite these recent policy changes, and ultimately concludes that though these policy interventions are critical, many of the state’s most marginalized undocumented students who aspire to attend college continue to be turned away, pushed out, and left behind.

I begin by situating this study in the political economic context of the Central Valley of California through a discussion of the changing political landscape in the state around undocumented students, then briefly review the relevant literature, and explain methods. I then extrapolate on my idea of “constrained inclusion,” and close with a brief discussion of significance and implications of this study.

Research Methods

This article draws on data gathered during the first phase of a qualitative ethnographic research project on the experiences of “illegality” among undocumented community college students in California. The broader study is concerned with how the educational experiences of undocumented, Latina/o community college students who do not fit the dominant “DREAMer” profile of academic excellence are shaped by new policies aimed at easing educational access for undocumented students. This article analyzes data from interviews conducted between 2013 and 2015 with 30 undocumented community college students living in California’s agricultural Central Valley.

All interview participants are undocumented, Latina/o, between the ages of 18 and 26 years at the time of the interview, and living in the Central Valley. Interview participants are either currently enrolled in community college or have enrolled in the previous term with plans to re-enroll. The decision to include students who were not enrolled at the time of the interview, but had been enrolled and planned to re-enroll, was necessary to account for patterns of non-consecutive enrollment term-to-term because of financial challenges. All names are pseudonyms.

Participants were primarily recruited through outreach to relevant offices at area community colleges; some were recruited through personal contacts in higher education and snowball sampling. I produced an electronic and hard copy flier that staff members and students were asked to share, which laid out the purpose of the study and invited students to contact me if they were interested in participating in an interview. College staff and students were instructed to not simply introduce me to students who fit the criteria, because doing so would constitute a breach of confidentiality about citizenship status, but rather to instruct students to contact me directly. I secured approval from the Institutional Review Board at my home campus, and secured verbal consent from all interviewees. Interviews were audio recorded on a mobile phone, and were conducted in a semi-private location of the interviewee’s choosing such as the library on campus, the public library, or a neighborhood cafe.

Interviews ranged from 45 to 120 min in length, and were conducted by me or my research assistant in a mutually agreed upon location. The protocol was divided into three parts: (a) early life, family history, and experiences of migration; (b) educational experiences of pre-college including the process of applying to college; and (c) experiences as an undocumented community college student. The interviews were conducted in English in a semi-structured manner, allowing the conversation to flow freely while also ensuring that all students answered the same questions. Audio recordings were then transcribed in their entirety, and data analysis was conducted from written transcriptions. Interviews were then coded, drawing on a grounded theory approach, and consistent themes were identified.

The California Context: The Valley of Contradictions

Of the estimated 12 million undocumented people living in the United States, one million are children under the age of 18 years (Passel, Cohn, & Lopez, 2011). Thirty years of federal inaction on comprehensive immigration reform has resulted in a generation of undocumented young people growing up in this country with no path to legalization. Despite growing up in this country, and being educated in U.S. schools, undocumented children are repeatedly faced with the constraints of their “tolerated illegality” (Oboler, 2006, p. 15). They are never able to fully incorporate into society because of their lack of citizenship status and face barriers to accessing higher education as well as the inability to work legally in this country. Within this context, a growing cohort of undocumented immigrants raised and educated in the United States presents a unique conundrum; their existence challenges notions of what undocumented people look like and what kind of work undocumented migrants are capable of doing.

The Central Valley is an area that stretches approximately 450 miles through the middle of California, home to nearly 7 million people. This region, one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions (Umbach, 1997), is the heart of California’s agricultural industry—an industry that produces more than half of the country’s vegetables, fruits, and nuts (Committee on Natural Resources, 2014). A critical part of this economic arrangement is ready access to a plentiful and elastic reserve army of low-wage labor. The economic geography of the Valley and its proximity to the U.S.–México border have come together to create an economic arrangement that relies on the low-wage labor of Mexican migrants to do the critical farm labor that keeps this Valley’s economy afloat yet simultaneously criminalizes and stigmatizes their presence (Chacón, Davis, & Cardona, 2006). It is assumed that the Central Valley of California is home to 100,000 undocumented immigrants (Hill & Johnson, 2011) who navigate a context of constrained rights and opportunities, living under the constant threat of deportation and family separation. Even the young people who gained a temporary protected status under President Obama’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program often live as members of mixed-status families and do not have any long-term options to regularize their status. Their future is even more uncertain now, as President Trump threatens to dissolve the program.

The Central Valley is marked by contradictions. It is a place of agricultural abundance, but many of its poorest residents, who spend their days picking the crops that create this abundance, are malnourished (Bulgarin & Lopez, 1998). It is a place marked by incredible wealth among ranchers and landowners, and is also home of some of the most extreme poverty in the nation (“Census Shows Central Valley Areas Among Poorest in Nation,” 2012). It is a land marked by migration and opportunity and also stuck in the intergenerational transfer of poverty that means that many of the children growing up in the Valley will be educated in schools that do not meet their needs (Public Policy Institute of California, 2002) and will end up doing the same back-breaking work their parents do. The Valley is critical to the California economy and to the global market, and production in the Valley is dependent on the wage of a low-wage labor force who are often crushed under the weight of this “prosperity.”

Undocumented children who grow up in the Valley navigate their family’s poverty alongside their own educational aspirations. Despite the profound barriers they face in pursuit of an education, many persist in the quest to achieve their educational goals. Although beyond the scope of this piece, it is important to acknowledge that the economic conditions of the Valley are coupled with vibrant migrant communities built on mutual aid, strong community connections, and resilience. The youth in this study draw on rich “funds of knowledge” to draw on González, Moll, and Amanti’s (2006) work, building on and contributing to the “community culture wealth” (Yosso, 2005) that is frequently a source of motivation for their educational pursuits. In fact, an understanding of the educational trajectories of these young people requires an explicit acknowledgment of the multiple, systemic barriers that they must overcome to continue their education after high school. Many attend community colleges because the cost of even the least expensive, 4-year state university is out of reach for their modest means. Their stories are not those of defeat; they are stories of resilience and resistance.

The Shifting Political Landscape

More than a decade ago, undocumented youth who stood on the edge of this uncertain future began a movement for a legislative solution to their situation. This movement sought to revive the promise in the landmark 1982 case Plyler v. Doe, which secured the right of undocumented students to primary public education (Olivas, 2012), and to extend this right to higher education and full legal citizenship. The structural limitations to educational access for undocumented students gave rise to a nascent grassroots movement in the early 2000s. Community-based organizations tied into local regional, statewide, and national networks fought several successful battles related to educational access for undocumented students during this period. The Student Adjustment Act, the precursor to the DREAM Act, was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2001 as a legislation that offered a path to citizenship for undocumented students. Later that year, Texas passed HB 1403 (see Rincón, 2008) and California passed AB 540 (see Seif, 2004), which categorized undocumented students as in-state residents for tuition purposes at state colleges and universities.

In recent years, this movement has secured some critically important wins, and California has been an epicenter of this struggle and these advances. Accompanying AB540, the in-state tuition law that was passed in 2001, the California Assembly passed AB130 and 131, enabling undocumented students to access some forms of financial aid. The laws AB540, AB130, and AB131 have come to constitute what is called the “California DREAM Act,” a package of laws that makes some forms of financial aid available to undocumented college students. The California legislature recently passed a driver’s license bill, and the state’s Supreme Court recently affirmed the right of an undocumented student who passed the bar exam to practice law in the state. Within the context of this shifting political terrain and state-based legislation aimed at easing the path for undocumented students to higher education, California is being held up as a national model for access to higher education for undocumented students. Most of the literature on undocumented college students focuses on students who were successful in high school and who pursued study at a 4-year institution directly after high school graduation. This study is one of the first to examine what this changing context looks like on the ground for students who do not follow this traditional route. The California Master Plan created a three-tiered higher educational system in California—the Community College system, the California State University (CSU) system, and the prestigious University of California (UC) system. The institution of the community college is an important site of access to higher education for marginalized students in the state; undocumented students have flocked to community colleges for the last several years as one of the most accessible paths toward higher education. I find that undocumented students in the Central Valley, who are navigating what is designed to be the most accessible and least expensive tier of the California higher education system, continue to have difficulty both accessing and persisting in college. Their stories and struggles illuminate the reality that this moment of increased educational access for undocumented students is not being experienced as such by all undocumented young people.

Undocumented Students and Community College as a Site of Access

Relevant to this study is literature on undocumented students and higher education, literature on higher education as a site of access for marginalized students, and literature on undocumented students and the community college system. This section briefly addresses these intersecting fields of inquiry.

Research on undocumented students has emerged over the past 15 years (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010; Flores, 2010; Person, Gutierrez Keeton, Medina, Gonzalez, & Minero, 2016), focusing on historic shifts in legislation, undocumented student activism and civic engagement, and educational barriers (Gonzales, Suárez-Orozco, & Dedios-Sanguineti, 2013; Pérez, Cortés, Ramos, & Coronado, 2010). Many undocumented students face shame, fear, frustration, and disillusionment as they navigate higher education (Negrón-Gonzales, 2013; Pérez et al., 2010), and as such, much of this research illuminates the institutional obstacles that undocumented students face as a result of their immigration status (Perez, Espinoza, Ramos, Coronado, & Cortes, 2009), limited financial resources (Chavez, Soriano, & Oliverez, 2007; Person et al., 2016), and lack of understanding from staff and faculty regarding their needs (Huber & Malagon, 2007; Pérez et al., 2010). Pérez et al. (2010) noted that a key to undocumented student success was having a strong support network of parents, faculty, college advisors, peers, and civic engagement. Indeed, activism has emerged as a research focus, as undocumented college students have been on the forefront of a movement toward educational access (Negrón-Gonzales, 2014, 2015). Gonzales’s (2008) work finds that many undocumented students consider activism to be a vehicle for having an impact on their own status in the policy arena as well as informing fellow community members about their rights.

Because most in-state tuition programs for undocumented students target recent high school graduates, there is a lack of literature on older students navigating higher education. Most glaringly, however, is the lack of attention paid to undocumented students at the community college level. The community college is said to promote

the belief that all individuals should have the opportunity to rise to their greatest potential. Accordingly, all barriers to individual development should be broken down. Institutions that enhance human growth should be created and supported. Talent is potentially to be found in every social stratum and at every age. (Cohen & Brawer, 1996, p. 10)

Thus, accessible education was meant to benefit both individual mobility and society (Cohen & Brawer, 1996). Some argue that challenges in the process of transferring students to 4-year institutions have made community colleges as much of a diversion as an access point to higher education (Ornelas & Solórzano, 2004) and in this sense, posit that they have been more of a “revolving door” than a direct pathway to 4-year institutions (Karabel, 1986, p. 27).

Proponents of the community college uphold its role as an accessible institution, which provides educational opportunities to students who would otherwise be locked out of higher education. The low-cost and open admissions policies are a core part of this accessibility (Bailey & Morest, 2006). Moreover,

during the 1950s and 1960s whenever a community college was established in a locale where there had been no publicly supported college, the proportion of high school graduates in that area who began college immediately increased, sometimes by as much as 50%. (Cohen & Brawer, 1996, p. 18)

Some scholars, like Jain, Herrera, Bernal, and Solorzano (2011), seek to reframe the transfer function of the community college by placing the onus on 4-year institutions to create a “transfer receptive culture” (p. 253). Community college students are more likely to be the first in their family to attend college, and a majority of them work at least part-time, markedly more than students at 4-year institutions (Kane & Rouse, 1999; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2015).

Depictions of undocumented youth in scholarly discourse are typically of college students or graduates, often attending prestigious universities—stories that fit within meritocratic conceptions of education (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010). This is despite the reality that community colleges have become the educational home for many undocumented students because it is the most accessible path to postsecondary education (Kim & Chambers, 2015). Historically, there has been a tremendous gap in the literature regarding undocumented students at community college, though recent years have seen some emerge of critical research on this question (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010; Gonzales & Ruiz, 2014; Huber & Malagon, 2007; Nienhusser, 2014; Oseguera, Flores, & Burciaga, 2010). Abrego and Gonzales (2010) write,

We caution against the almost exclusive focus on undocumented students at four-year colleges and universities that we have found in the literature . . . The vast majority of undocumented youth are either at community colleges or out of school. (p. 155)

They go on,

Portrayals of high-achieving students, star athletes, and civically minded young people need to be balanced with accounts of impoverished, troubled young people whose daily lives of struggle are constructed by a lack of legal access, resource-poor urban and rural high schools, a narrow pipeline to postsecondary education, and an adult world rife with legal barriers to full participation. (Abrego & Gonzales, 2010, p. 155)

This study attempts to make a contribution to this endeavor by situating the experiences of undocumented community college students in California’s Central Valley, embedded in this contradiction between prosperity and poverty, as a critical site of inquiry.

“Constrained Inclusion”: How Citizenship Shapes Access and Persistence to Community College in California

In this section, I will draw directly from the interview data to illustrate the ways that citizenship status shapes the educational experiences and educational trajectories of undocumented community college students in the Central Valley of California. Although some of these experiences are tied to other aspects of their social location and identity, namely class, I contend that being undocumented has profoundly shaped the educational experiences of these young people, both as they begin to prepare for college as well as their experiences once enrolled. The data illuminate the ways that despite legislation aimed at making college more accessible, undocumented status continues to shape both the access and persistence of community college students in the Valley. I highlight three findings related to each of these two categories. These students navigate a unique dynamic I call, “constrained inclusion,” constituted by the assurance of inclusion with institutions of higher education as a result of the legislative gains of recent years, while bumping up against the constraints of those gains. I find that the inclusion secured through this legislation is not attentive to the full nature of their immigrant student experience, such that the very premise of inclusion falls short. This is particularly important given the fact that the community college system, as a part of the California Master Plan for Higher Education, is designed to be the most accessible entry point for higher education system in the state. Thus, if undocumented students are facing barriers to access and persistence in this context, these policies need to be reconfigured.

Access

There are multiple ways in which undocumented students encounter difficulty in navigating entry to community college, rooted in multiple points along the k-20 pipeline. Twenty-six of the 30 participants in this study faced significant barriers in relation to access and enrollment; the remaining four cite good mentorship by a caring adult (high school counselor, non-profit staff person, high school teacher) as key to having helped them navigate the process of enrolling in community college. The vast majority, 26 of the 30 respondents, discuss the process of navigating enrollment in community college as one marked by difficulty, misinformation, unhelpful personnel, and unclear processes. These interviews reveal three key findings that illuminate the ways that undocumented status shapes access and enrollment for undocumented community college students in the Central Valley. Undocumented community college students (a) receive misinformation about higher education options in high school, (b) confront barriers to enrollment at the community college level, and (c) are impeded by fear, which prevents them from accessing support and services for which they are eligible.

The majority of undocumented community college students in this study did not get appropriate information in high school about the college process early enough to make consequential choices about their post-graduation options. This is particularly striking given that all of these students attended public high schools located in majority Latina/o, working class, agricultural communities. Despite a likelihood that many students in their school communities were undocumented, most respondents report that citizenship status was never openly talked about in high school. As a result of this silence, more than half of the interviewees did not disclose their status to anybody in high school and many did not know that college was even a possibility for them. One young woman, Daniela, recalls,

For most of high school, I didn’t give my post-high school career thought . . . By the time senior year rolled around, I still wasn’t sure whether my sister and I could go to college. We didn’t even think community college was an option because we are illegal, we just didn’t think we could go. (M. Daniela, personal communication, February 11, 2014)

She goes on, later in the interview, concluding,

In terms of help from my [high] school, nobody ever really—there wasn’t counseling or information like that. I never got any, I never knew there was any help for students that don’t have papers, which is probably the reason I thought I could not go to a four-year college or university.

In addition to misinformation about the rights of undocumented students to attend California colleges, many students also cited being misinformed about the process of applying. Several students identified fees as a significant barrier to the college application process, not realizing that low-income undocumented students are eligible for fee waivers, both for college applications as well as required exams.

There is a fee for every single university you apply to. I think it was $55 for the UC and the CSU, I’m not sure . . . I mean I would love to, but I was afraid. First, because I didn’t have the money to apply for even one university. But even if I did, how would I pay for the SAT and ACT? . . . You need to enter a social security number, you know. (L. Marisa, personal communication, October 12, 2015)

This misinformation directly and indirectly affected student decisions about where to apply and how many colleges to apply to.

Even after they are enrolled, undocumented students continue to deal with the lack of information about their eligibility, financial aid, and their rights; a process that can result in students being turned away or paying more than is necessary. Several students recounted stories of going to the admission office of their local community college and being told that they could not enroll if they did not have a social security number, which is untrue in California. “I was already nervous, and then the lady at the office was like, look, if you don’t have a social [security number] you can’t fill this out. I don’t know what to tell you” (G. Daniel, personal communication, July 2, 2015). Some students navigated this barrier by simply coming back another day and speaking with another admissions staff member; however, it is safe to assume that many students who were turned away never enrolled. One young man, Elias, cited a similar experience as the reason that he did not enroll in community college right out of high school. When Elias was told by the Admissions Office that he could not enroll without a social security number, he figured that his only option was to work, which he did for 4 years. “I’ve been working. I worked in the fields, for seasonal work. And I also work in a restaurant. I have been working there since I graduated from high school” (R. Elias, personal communication, July 2, 2015). It was not until 4 years later that he realized through talking with friends that undocumented students are eligible to enroll in community college, information that resulted in his matriculation. When asked about his decision to return to school, he explains, “Work is so miserable. I felt like I was gonna be stuck there forever if I didn’t do something. So I decided I better do this, to better myself.” Nearly half the students interviewed reported not being informed of the financial aid that was available to them as undocumented students, and as a result paid more than was necessary. One young woman, in her fifth semester at her junior college, did not know about the DREAM Act that she could have been benefiting from, until my interview with her. “Oh yeah, I um . . . I don’t really know about that. I have been trying to research what the DREAM Act does. So it is um . . . is it supposed to lower tuition?” (G. Viviana, personal communication, March 1, 2015). She had never been informed that she was eligible to apply for this financial aid, despite the fact that she is living well below the federal poverty line.

Finally, I find that even when support that is intended to bridge the divide for marginalized students is available, fear often prevents undocumented students from accessing these services. Gabriela recounts a conversation she had with a mother she met through her community work with a local non-profit organization. This mother, whose child was eligible for protection from deportation through the Defered Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, was hesitant to apply because she feared the possible repercussions.

[The mother] didn’t want to put her real address on her son’s DACA application because she was scared of what might happen. She was like “what if they come for me and my husband?” I had to tell her, like, “Look, if you don’t put your real address, they can’t send you the approval and you are going to have to reapply and repay the money. They need your real address.” But she was scared. (R. Gabriela, personal communication, March 11, 2014)

Gabriela regularly encounters families who choose not to access support they are eligible for because doing so would require acknowledging their undocumented status and the stakes for this disclosure in the conservative Central Valley are high. Another student, Lupe, is hesitant to file the California DREAM Act application because she lives with her parents and does not want to put their home address on the application.

I know, now, that I could apply for it. But it doesn’t seem worth it to me, it doesn’t seem worth the risk. I know it costs me more if I am paying just out of pocket, but I have a job. I can do it. I don’t need the financial aid. It is just not worth the risk. (C. Lupe, personal communication, October 22, 2014)

The fear not only meant that she was paying more money for her education than was required, it also meant that her time toward a degree was significantly elongated because she was dependent on the cycle of working and saving to cover school costs through her wages alone.

There are myriad ways in which undocumented students encounter difficulty in navigating community college entry, a process that begins in high school. Thus, new laws and policies that open up these proverbial doors are only as effective as is the message that undocumented students have the right to approach those doors in the first place.

Persistence

The challenges undocumented students face continue for those who get past the hurdle of enrollment. Every student interviewed in this study expressed concerns about their ability to graduate. This study reveals three key findings that illuminate the ways that undocumented status shapes student experience as it related to success and persistence for undocumented community college students in the Central Valley of California. For undocumented community college students, (a) tuition policies are not enough because non-tuition school costs are high; (b) a non-hospitable campus climate can have negative emotional, social, and academic impacts; and (c) illegality creates a kind of financial precarity that works against degree completion.

Recent legislative changes in California largely focus on alleviating the tuition burden on undocumented students. However, I find that for students who are navigating deep and familial poverty, tuition assistance is simply not enough to enable students to access college. Financial concerns are central, though paying tuition is not the only, or even the principle financial worry for many students. These concerns are situated in the broader legal and practical issues that come along with the precarious status of being undocumented and poor in what is largely a hostile and conservative climate. Students often drop out because of the constraints of poverty, including the non-tuition expenses that are associated with college. Belen explains,

It is just so expensive. You have to pay your own books, and tuition, and all the expenses that come along with getting to campus, getting all your materials, buying all the books—you are just paying really high amounts of money. My family, we don’t have much. So everything we have to pay for is a big deal. (Belen M., personal communication, February 12, 2014)

Tuition support is helpful to Belen, but the reality of the non-tuition costs that come along with college can prove so significant that they frequently prevent her from enrolling in school a particular semester. For other students, it is not simply about budgeting for non-tuition academic costs like books, but related to their role as breadwinners in their family units. Zulma shares,

I am responsible for my parents. Cause my dad doesn’t make a lot of money so I’m responsible for paying like, the water bill, the PG&E bill. I was responsible for paying the mortgage last year because my parents were having a hard time . . . My parents have worked hard. They have paid taxes the whole time they worked because they worked with other people’s social security numbers. But that money is gone. They don’t have anything to fall back on like citizens do, now that they are old and cannot really work. (Zulma L., personal communication, February 12, 2014)

Zulma, like with many undocumented young people in this study, occupy a central financial role in their families. Thus, the choice to pay for school is tempered with the real responsibilities of caring for one’s family, including aging parents.

In addition, I find that undocumented students frequently experience a non-hospitable campus climate, which can have a negative emotional, social, and academic impact. When asked about the resources on campus and who she goes to when she is struggling, Belen admits,

I have mostly navigated it on my own. Even if it is a predominantly Hispanic or Latino student population—there is still that separation between undocumented students and the other ones. I just wish there was something to make me feel welcome here. (Belen M., personal communication, February 12, 2014)

For others, it is the experience of occupying a qualitatively different reality from their classmates. One student talks about the difficulty of keeping the secret about being undocumented in situations with friends.

Sometimes . . . my classmates who are from here . . . ask me about my day. And I say I get up at 5 in the morning, I get ready in order to drive my mom and dad to work. And they just don’t understand—they are like why do you do that? Why can’t they drive themselves? Why don’t you get another car? Why can’t they go to work later? They don’t get it. (M. Juliana, personal communication, January 16, 2015)

Navigating an inhospitable climate on a daily basis is challenging. “I am now able, I am comfortable sharing the story behind me, but I wasn’t always. But now I can say—this is why. No tenemos papeles. This is their work” (M. Juliana, personal communication, January 16, 2015). Some students talk about a much more acute experience, the feeling of being marginalized because of anti-immigrant sentiment. One student, Daniela, experienced this when a student from her music class friended her on Facebook. The classmate, who she was friendly with, turned out to be fiercely anti-immigrant. “Posting stuff like that, you know, like ‘we should send everybody back to where they came from.’ . . . I take it personally, there’s no way I can’t—he’s talking about me. Even though he doesn’t know it” (M. Daniela, personal communication, February 11, 2014). Daniela felt unsure after this experience, not just about her relationship with this classmate, but about her safety in that class and on her campus.

Finally, “illegality” creates a kind of financial precarity that works against degree completion. Jaime, who has two college-aged brothers as well, explains how they balance school and work when money is tight.

We drop out of school when my dad doesn’t have work. We work full time so that we can support the family. At one point, I had to drop out for an entire year. I did roofing. My brother dropped out during his first year here at [their community college] and he did landscaping. He tried to go back, but then he ended up having to drop out again. I went back after that year, but then had to drop out again to do roofing. And right now, we are working it out real good. We are working part-time, and going to school at the same time. Things are working good for now, but you know, you never know how long that’s going to last. (B. Jaime, personal communication, April 10, 2015)

Many students find that work sometimes comes into direct conflict with academic success. Alejandra shares,

Since we are an agricultural family, there is always that quick money for those three months when cherries are in season. So we work, and we save . . . There was one semester where I wasn’t going to work but money was tight so I had to, and then I started working in the fields, and I flunked my classes. Because it was just too much. (Q. Alejandra, personal communication, May 23, 2015)

Alejandra’s poor academic performance resulted in decreased financial support.

I am just cleaning up my academic record now from that, and I can’t even apply for the CA DREAM Act because its GPA based so I don’t have that chance until I clean up my GPA, which is still messed up from when I had to work in the fields. So for now, I have to pay for everything. I have to pay out of pocket. (Q. Alejandra, personal communication, May 23, 2015)

Many students cannot enroll full-time, because of work responsibilities, which in turn jeopardizes financial aid. Octavio shares,

If I had money to pay for classes, that would be easier and I could just prioritize and finish school. But I can’t do it. I can’t only prioritize school because I have a responsibility to my family. My family depends on my work, financially. (L. Octavio, personal communication, May 2, 2014)

One semester, Octavio needed a US$200 textbook for a class. “It took me like half the semester to buy it cause it was hard to get the money. So I went for half the semester without the book.” For obvious reasons, the impacts of this on his academic performance were significant.

Thus, similar to the difficulties undocumented students face in enrolling in community college, there are a parallel set of challenges that they continue to navigate once enrolled. These difficulties shape their experiences as students, and as such, have a profound impact on their ability to study, to succeed, and ultimately to transfer to a 4-year institution. These experiences demonstrate that even with these inclusive policies, undocumented students are still confronting many exclusive practices in the context of the community college system.

Implications and Conclusion: Toward True Inclusion, Without Constraints

The experiences of these young people—navigating low-wage work, poverty, racism, “illegality”, and education—complicate the emerging story about how policy change has cleared the path for educational access for undocumented students in California. They navigate an institutional landscape of “constrained inclusion,” characterized by the disconnect between the promise of inclusion embodied in this recent legislation and the reality that citizenship status encumbers their educational experiences. These students are the undocumented young people that recent policies have aimed to reach; the students who the California DREAM Act promises to help. However, their stories do not speak to an eased path but instead illuminate the reality that though these policies are important, they are not translating into access for some of the most marginalized undocumented students in the state.

Further research is needed on this population which experiences this double marginalization. In addition to understanding the particular ways in which the community college path presents unique challenges to undocumented students, we must also specifically pay attention to the ways in which political economy, “illegality,” and low-wage work interacts with the educational trajectories and educational access of undocumented young people. Furthermore, research is necessary to analyze the ways in which the Trump presidency will again reconfigure the educational trajectories of undocumented students. On the precipice of what appears to be a new political moment regarding immigration in this country, educational researchers must be particularly attentive to not only the educational lives of undocumented students but also contextualize these young people as members of families and communities who are also under threat.

These findings speak to the limits of these sorts of policy reforms and also point to the necessity of understanding the experiences of undocumented students in a more nuanced way. Although we have taken some affirmative steps in the process of greater educational access for undocumented students, there is still much more that remains to be done. District leadership must prioritize preparing teachers to meet the unique needs of undocumented students in the K-12 system, including equipping them with current information about legislation that may be able to benefit them. Similarly, community college administrators must ensure that their open door policies extend to undocumented students not simply on paper, but in practice. This will require not only rigorous training of frontline staff who interface with prospective students, particularly in the admissions and financial aid offices, but also concerted efforts to shift campus culture through programming designed to reach undocumented students, public statements of solidarity which affirm the right of undocumented students to study by college leaders, and increased financial supports for undocumented students in poverty.

Beyond these specific steps that teachers, staff members, and administrators can take to truly increase educational access for undocumented students, these findings also point to a broader set of considerations those concerned about the academic success and academic trajectories of all undocumented students must be attentive to. First, we need to consider the ways in which policy aimed solely at educational access does not do enough to meet the needs of students who are contending with deep, intergenerational and familial poverty. Second, we must consider how policy efforts are constrained by the political–economic context of poverty and low-wage immigrant labor in the state. Third, we must grapple with the distance between paving the way for undocumented students to enroll in state colleges and universities and what it will actually take for them to be welcomed in these institutions. Still, despite the profound barriers that stand in their way, these young people are marching on, determined to earn their degrees and to fulfill the promise their parents had for them when they migrated here. Their resolute determination suggests that there is hope, there is resistance, and there are students who are finding their way in a system that is not set up to foster their success.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the undocumented students who shared their stories and their lives with me. The author thanks her research assistant, Olivia Muñoz, doctoral student at the University of San Francisco, for her help in conducting these interviews and assisting with the literature review.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales, PhD, is assistant professor in the School of Education at the University of San Francisco where she teaches in the Higher Education and Student Affairs Program. Professor Negrón-Gonzales has been working with, supporting and researching undocumented young people for the past 10 years as a student affairs professional, professor, and researcher. Her work seeks to bridge political economy, higher education, and immigration in order to highlight the ways in which migrant illegality is (re)produced through the racialized spaces of higher education within the context of neo-liberalism.

References

Abrego

L. J.

Gonzales

R. G.

(2010). Blocked paths, uncertain futures: The postsecondary education and labor market prospects of undocumented Latino youth. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 15(1-2), 144-157.

Bailey

Morest

V. S.

(2006). Defending the community college equity agenda. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bulgarin

Lopez

E. S.

(1998). Farmworkers in California. California Research Bureau, California State Library. Retrieved from http://hpm.org/crb/98/07/98007a.pdf

Census shows central valley areas among poorest in nation. (2012, September 20). The Mercury News. Retrieved from http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_21596949/central-valley-areas-among-poorest

Chacón

J. A.

Davis

Cardona

(2006). No one is illegal: Fighting violence and state repression on the U.S.-Mexico border. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

Chavez

M. L.

Soriano

Oliverez

(2007). Undocumented students’ access to college: The American dream denied. Latino Studies, 5, 254-263.

Cohen

A. M.

Brawer

F. B.

(1996). The American Community College. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Committee on Natural Resources. (2014). California’s central valley: Producing America’s fruits and vegetables. Retrieved from http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2_5_14_ca_ri.pdf

Flores

S. M.

(2010). State dream acts: The effect of in-state resident tuition policies and undocumented Latino students. The Review of Higher Education, 33, 239-283.

10.

Gonzales

R. G.

(2008). Left out but not shut down: Political activism and the undocumented student movement. Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy, 3, 219-239.

11.

Gonzales

R. G.

Ruiz

A. G.

(2014). Dreaming beyond the fields: Undocumented youth, rural realities and a constellation of disadvantage. Latino Studies, 12, 194-216.

12.

Gonzales

R. G.

Suárez-Orozco

Dedios-Sanguineti

M. C.

(2013). No place to belong: Contextualizing concepts of mental health among undocumented immigrant youth in the United States. American Behavioral Scientist, 57, 1174-1199.

13.

González

Moll

L. C.

Amanti

(Eds.). (2006). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. New York, NY: Routledge.

14.

Hill

L. E.

Johnson

H. P.

(2011). Unauthorized immigrants in California: Estimates for counties. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.

15.

Huber

L. P.

Malagon

M. C.

(2007). Silenced struggles: The experiences of Latina and Latino undocumented college students in California. Nevada Law Journal, 7, 841-861.

16.

Jain

Herrera

Bernal

Solorzano

(2011). Critical race theory and the transfer function: Introducing a transfer receptive culture. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 35, 252-266.

17.

Kane

T. J.

Rouse

C. E.

(1999). The community college: Educating students at the margin between college and work. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13(1), 63-84.

18.

Karabel

(1986). Community colleges and social stratification in the 1980s. New Directions for Community Colleges, 1986(54), 13-30.

19.

Kim

Chambers

J. A.

(2015). Undocumented immigrants and institutional admission policy transformation in a community college: Exploring policy-making and its consequences. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 39, 55-69.

20.

Negrón-Gonzales

(2013). Navigating “illegality”: Undocumented youth & oppositional consciousness. Children and Youth Services Review, 35, 1284-1290.

21.

Negrón-Gonzales

(2014). Undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic: Re-articulatory practices and migrant youth “illegality.” Latino Studies, 12, 259-278.

22.

Negrón-Gonzales

(2015). Undocumented youth activism as counter-spectacle: Civil disobedience and testimonio in the battle around immigration reform. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, 40(1), 87-112.

23.

Nienhusser

H. K.

(2014). Role of community colleges in the implementation of postsecondary education enrollment policies for undocumented students. Community College Review, 42, 3-22.

24.

Oboler

(2006). Redefining citizenship as a lived experience. In Oboler

(Ed.), Latinos and citizenship: The dilemma of belonging (pp. 3-30). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

25.

Olivas

M. A.

(2012). No undocumented child left behind: Plyler v. Doe and the education of undocumented schoolchildren. NYU Press.

26.

Ornelas

Solórzano

(2004). The transfer condition of Latina/o community college students in California: Policy recommendations and solutions. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 28, 233-248.

27.

Oseguera

Flores

S. M.

Burciaga

(2010). Documenting implementation realities: Undocumented immigrant students in California and North Carolina. Journal of College Admission, 206, 37-43.

28.

Passel

J. S.

Cohn

Lopez

M. H.

(2011). Hispanics account for more than half of nation’s growth in past decade. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.

29.

Pérez

Cortés

R. D.

Ramos

Coronado

(2010). “Cursed and blessed”: Examining the socioemotional and academic experiences of undocumented Latina and Latino college students. New Directions for Student Services, 2010(131), 35-51.

30.

Perez

Espinoza

Ramos

Coronado

H. M.

Cortes

(2009). Academic resilience among undocumented Latino students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 31, 149-181.

31.

Person

Gutierrez Keeton

Medina

Gonzalez

Minero

L. P.

(2016). Effectively serving AB 540 and undocumented students at a hispanic serving institution. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. doi: 10.1177/1538192716628956

32.

Public Policy Institute of California. (2002). Students, teachers, and schools in California’s central valley [Research brief]. Author. Retrieved from http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_902CJRB.pdf

33.

Rincón

(2008). Undocumented immigrants and higher education: Sí se puede! El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing.

34.

Seif

(2004). “Wise up!” Undocumented Latino youth, Mexican-American legislators, and the struggle for higher education access. Latino Studies, 2, 210-230.

35.

Suárez-Orozco

Katsiaficas

Birchall

Alcantar

C. M.

Hernandez

Garcia

Minas

(2015). Undocumented undergraduates on college campuses: Understanding their challenges and assets and what it takes to make an undocufriendly campus. Harvard Educational Review, 85, 427-463.

36.

Umbach

(1997). A statistical tour of California’s great central valley. California Research Bureau, California State Library. Retrieved from http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/09/

37.

Yosso

T. J.

(2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8, 69-91.