The Politics of Organic Phylogeny: The Art of Parenting and Surviving as Transnational Multilingual Latino Indigenous Immigrants in the U.S.

This three-year qualitative research study took place in a new immigrant-receiving community in North Carolina. Utilizing narrative analysis, it explores how Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan immigrants of indigenous backgrounds use language as a survival tool to move in and out of transnational social spaces. In addition, it explores the ways in which parents transmit funds of knowledge (Moll, 1992) to their undocumented youth to prepare them for adult life as children of Latino indigenous immigrants in the U.S.. This article examines the implications of transnational cultural and linguistic spaces and its effects and implications for children of multilingual families. It also raises questions about the ways multilingualism affects border mobility and transnationality as well as how undocumented families use multilingualism as a transnational bridge to facilitate their children’s survival in a hostile U.S. environment while schools remain indifferent and unaware of such issues.