Conditioning Experiences of Attachment

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are associated with positive or negative memories, these narratives illustrate the various modes through which parents condition the immigration experience for their children.

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As alluded to above, Daniel also faced an “emotional disturbance” with his cousins, which Daniel considered “important to note” in relation to his immigration story. He detailed that he, his mother, and his sister lived with his mother’s extended family. However, there was a negative atmosphere at home, and Daniel’s perception was that his cousins purposely spoke English in front of him to exclude him:

[They] started talking in English right in front of us because they knew we would not

understand it. They were the kind of tensions you would not expect from a family member.

But even though we did not understand what they were saying, you could just feel that they were talking about us and saying bad stuff about us.

Though Daniel could not understand what was being said, he was conscious that he was the subject of the conversation with a negative connotation. For Daniel, physically being at “home” was not

associated with emotional comfort, but rather interfamilial tension and purposeful exclusion which conditioned his everyday SofB during his early life in the United States. Overall, migration was not an individual experience, but rather one conditioned by various family members.

5.1.2.2 Parental Approaches to ULS

There are various other ways in which family members condition the everyday experiences of the 1.5GUY, including ways that influence their SofB in the process. One phenomenon that became salient during discussions with youth was how parental approaches to ULS shape the youth’s everyday lives. This included parents’ approaches to discussions about ULS, disclosure about ULS, and the particular instructions they gave their children as a result of ULS.

Alvarez recalled that he was told by his parents that he was going on vacation, but also that his mother told him: “not to do anything wrong. Not to say anything” about the immigration experience.

However, when I asked if Alvarez understood why his mother had instructed him not to discuss his journey or to behave in a particular manner, Alvarez replied that he did not know what his mother meant, nor the rationale behind her instructions. Furthermore, though he recalled physically crossing the international border, he had no knowledge that his family crossed with false papers and

furthermore, that this meant that he and his family would become undocumented.

Similarly, Mexican-born Cruz, who came at age ten, was also told to pay attention to the way he behaved, though unlike Alvarez, knew that he was undocumented from early on. He explained “my

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mom told me the first time when I got here. She said ‘we don’t have papers, don’t do anything bad.’”

However, though Cruz knew of his ULS, he admitted that he did not know what ULS entailed, nor the implications it would have later in life. Though Cruz and Alvarez were residents of diverse and

immigrant-rich New York City, they were both instructed from young ages to pay attention to how they acted and furthermore, to behave in a certain way. Regardless of whether these men knew why their parents gave them these instructions, their narratives suggest that parents’ approaches condition some 1.5GUY’s everyday lives, experiences, and actions early on.

Lina, a Colombian-born 1.5GUY who came to the United States at age nine, reflected upon how her parents approached discussions about ULS. Lina told me that her father said that they were moving to the United States due to medical reasons and added that rationale was “always” what she was told by her parents, in turn legitimizing both the immigration process and continued residency in the United States. I asked Lina if she knew of her ULS growing up and she replied that she was never explicitly told by her parents, but added “I think I knew about my status before I officially found out…I had a close group of Peruvian, some Colombian friends. It was a mixed status group.” Lina’s knowledge about ULS is ambiguous, but is nonetheless shaped by her contexts and relations, not only because her friends had various legal and non-legal immigration statuses, but also because they came from various nationalities.

Alternatively, Brazilian-born Leonardo, who first came to Disney World before settling in Connecticut, was explicitly told by his parents he was undocumented. He said:

From the start I was told that I was undocumented and I couldn’t—there were certain limits, but when you are nine, you don’t really know. All my dad said was “don’t tell anyone about our situation.”

Though Leonardo’s immigration memory is positively connected to his vacation, the instructions from his parents indicate that there was something about the “situation” that could not be shared with others.

He was instructed by his parents to keep things on the “hush-hush and not tell anyone about it.” I asked Leonardo if he discussed ULS with his family and he replied: “no, we really didn’t talk about it.

It wasn’t really a concern until high school for me.” Thus, while Leonardo knew of his ULS growing

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up, it was neither something he discussed with his family nor concerned him or his everyday life early on. Due to his age, he neither understood ULS, nor the limits it would bring.

Beyond being explicitly told by parents not to discuss ULS, some 1.5GUY revealed that their parents instructed them not to even discuss being an immigrant at all. For example, Adriana, who crossed the border at age of four from Mexico knew of her ULS growing up, but explained “I was not supposed to tell anyone that I wasn’t from here.” Sofía, a Mexican-born youth, explained that she was instructed to keep quiet about being an immigrant. She detailed that she was five when her family drove from Mexico to the United States and crossed with a tourist visa. She further explained that though she did not remember all of the details, she did remember that while her parents never told her about her ULS, they instructed her to tell anyone who asked that she was born in the United States:

For the longest time, my parents just told me to tell people I was born [in the U.S.]. They were like “Don’t tell anyone you are from Mexico. You are born in [here]. That is it.”

That was pretty much my story for everyone: I was born here, have been living here my whole life. No one questioned it, it was fine.

I asked Sofía if she knew why her parents directed her to respond in such a way, to which she replied:

I had no clue. Obviously I knew something was wrong, because your parents shouldn’t be telling you to lie. But, of course, I had no clue what it meant. I had no idea if I myself was doing something wrong, or if it was a bad thing to be from Mexico.

While Sofía was aware of the dissonance between the reality of her experiences and her parents’

directives, she neither questioned these instructions nor understood the motivation behind them until years later. Notably, Sofía knew that “something was wrong,” associated the instructions with negative perceptions, but was uncertain as to whether this was in relation to place of birth, ethnicity, her

individual actions, or something else altogether. In retrospect, she suggested that her parents’

instructions were motivated by fear and the desire to protect her. Regardless of the explicit reasons for instructing her to handle questions about birthplace in a certain way, this example again illustrates that ULS is something that requires particular actions and that parents condition early experiences.

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While these are just some examples, together they illustrate the prominence and diversity of parental approaches to discussions about ULS, including disclosure, secrecy, non-disclosure, and ambiguity.

Parents instructions to not disclose ULS to outsiders was a frequently encountered phenomenon and one that extended across all nationalities and methods of entry. Youth explained that they surmised that their parents’ instructions were motivated by fear, desire to protect, shame, and stigma. Notably, parents’ instructions to not disclose ULS, to behave in a certain way, or to pretend to be born in the United States illustrate not the youth’s own coping strategies, but rather those of their parents, which in turn condition the 1.5GUY’s everyday lives, experiences, and identities, and their overall SofB. That parents take these approaches indicate the negative and early influences of ULS on the lives and experiences of everyday SofB for 1.5GUY.