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232 / Chapter 8 Reassessing human Capital and Intergenerational mobility Roberto g. gonzales T his chapter examines the adult experiences of undocumented immigrants who migrate as children and must navigate legal and economic limitations (for expanded versions of some of the arguments presented here, see Gonzales 2010a, 2011). Empirically, I draw from 150 life history interviews and four and a half years of fieldwork with 1.5-generation young adults of Mexican origin living in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. In doing so, I focus attention on the ways family poverty and the limitations of unauthorized residency status constrain choices and, in turn, shape expectations and aspirations. My analysis compares the experiences of two groups of differently achieving young adults I call college-goers and early-exiters. The college-goers make up the top strata of their communities. During their school years, support from teachers and other adults, coupled with their internalization of the notion that their hard work will garner them success, helped them to maintain positive attitudes about their futures and achieve academic success. Their educational trajectories stand in stark contrast to the early-exiters, a group composed of young adults who left the school system at or before their high school graduation. Instead of daily lives spent with high achieving peers and in pursuit of advanced degrees, their concerns quickly shifted to more immediate needs, such as keeping jobs and meeting mounting expenses. gabriel Gabriel has experienced more than his share of life’s setbacks.1 At twenty-eight, he confronts the everyday difficulties of low-wage work and legal limitations. He works with Mexican and Vietnamese immigrants in a factory, assembling car parts. Although he makes only $8 an hour—hardly enough to meet his personal expenses and the $350 a month he provides to his mother—he tells me that this is the first full-time job he has ever held for more than three months. Reassessing human Capital and Intergenerational mobility / 233 When I met him in 2003, he was living his life with little hope to join mainstream society. A series of blocked opportunities had left him frustrated and deflated. He had started taking classes at a community college a year prior, but stopped going because he could not afford tuition, fees, and books. To make matters worse, he was fired from his job when his employer received a No-Match letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA), indicating that the Social Security number he was using did not match SSA records. Gabriel does not have a valid stateissued identification card. He is not a citizen of the United States. He is not authorized to legally work in the United States. The termination put him and his family in a bind and unable to come up with enough money to cover the rent. Feeling like a burden to his mother, Gabriel decided to find a place of his own. Gabriel has been in the United States since he was six years old. After finalizing a divorce in Mexico, his mother packed up what little she had and told her children they were going to Disneyland. As a single mother of three her first years in the United States were marred with hardship and struggle. Undocumented, with less than a third grade education, and without other family members in the United States, Gabriel’s mother struggled to make ends meet. A series of close calls with immigration agents left her scared and further isolated her and the kids. She began working as an at-home babysitter and has done so for more than twenty years. In addition to her meager wages, she has no co-workers and few friends to whom to look for support. Because she works from home, she has few opportunities to become integrated into the community. She also has no foreseeable path to legalization . These limiting circumstances undoubtedly have consequences for her children . Gabriel has the cumulative disadvantages of undocumented status. With only a high school degree and a handful of community college credits, he has spent much of his years since high school toiling in low-wage jobs and avoiding being caught. His world is narrowly circumscribed by his legal limitations and lack of good options . He has not been in school on a full-time basis for more than ten years. Without the safety net of school, he must struggle in the world of low-wage work, and be ready to leave his job at a moment’s notice...

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