Migrant Youth. Eight Postcards from Mobile Youth in Center and North America

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When considering mobility, migration and displacement among youth, the complexities defy straightforward categorization, beyond the methodological and epistemological challenges and implications. Defining who qualifies as a young person has posed a longstanding challenge across scientific and humanistic disciplines alike, influencing researchers to theorize and ground their observations, hypotheses, and theories in empirical terrain for over a century.

Yet, here lies the generational paradox: youth as subjects are in constant change—they are and are not young. Despite this fluidity, they persist as a presence, even as individuals change. It seems that unresolved conflicts, concerns, practices, identities, legacies, and social, political and cultural repertoires are inherited among themselves. Young people pass the baton of change onward to each successive generation.

Whether navigating the transition between adolescence to youth or from youth to adulthood, individuals share spatial–temporal context that shape their interests, ideals, and worldviews. However, no generation is identical to another.

To illustrate this on a micro-social level, consider a small family composed of a mother and two young daughters. Even within such a close–knit group, the ways they engage with the world and negotiate their identity can vary drastically. Because of this, it can be challenging to grasp, understand and comprehend synchronously the representations and identities of young people in their time and space, particularly those who have chosen to departure, leaving behind their homes, places of social interaction and countries of origin or residence to migrate, cross borders, and move either voluntarily or involuntarily from south to north.

This article does not focus on dialoguing or discussing definitions—nor is an analytical framework around migrant youths, who have been central figures for over a century in processes, trajectories, and the social and cultural representations shaping the perception of them in contexts of mobility, migration and displacement. It also does not seek to establish the characteristics, identities, interpretations, meanings, and expectations of young people who choose to migrate northward from Mexico and Central America.

In other words, this article does not attempt to define or categorize the youth who have been born, grown up, lived and traveled in contexts of mobilities, migrations or forced displacements across North and Central America. Nor does it aim to explore the diverse representations of young people who have shaped their lives, voluntarily or under duress, beyond the borders of their home regions. Instead, through 8 postcards, the text invites readers to reflect and discover a range of bibliographic, cinematographic, musical, and other resources. These serve as a brief introduction to the experiences and roles that young people living in contexts of mobility, migration and displacement have encountered over time and continue facing today.

POSTCARD 1. THEY BECAME IMMIGRANTS: PACHUCOS AND PACHUCAS
In history books, and beyond them, a phrase persists: “With the stroke of a pen, they became immigrants”. This reflects the fate of countless individuals, families and communities who were Mexican citizens one day, only to find themselves declared non-citizens of the newly formed United States. Following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they became immigrants in their own land.

The extensive history of Mexican immigration to the United States began in 1848, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico was forced to give up the territories of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, parts of Arizona, Colorado, and portions of present-day Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming as a part of this treaty. This event established the foundation for the border we know today: the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, which eventually developed into the United States’ southern border with Mexico and, years later, became the wall separating North and Latin America.

The border crossed us; we did not cross the border. This motto shaped the identity of the initial generations of young people who, beyond being seen solely as agricultural workers, redefined prevailing narratives about the ideas, expectations and visions of the future for those born on U.S. territory but labeled as second-class citizens: greasers, pochos....

Following the resettlement of these early generations who, unintentionally, became Mexican immigrants around the newly drawn borders, the second and third generations of dark-haired and brown-skinned individuals, “Mexican-origingringos”, formed the initial large-scale Mexican American identity: pachucos and pachucas.

It wasn’t until many years later, with Luis Valdez’s play Zoot Suit and its subsequent adaptation into Chicano cinema, that perhaps the first definitive representation of young people emerged. Through counter-narratives, it solidified the anchor identity that transformed the perception of pachucos and pachucas in American society, documenting and showcasing their presence on screen. Over time, the United States became not only a prominent immigration destination, but also an emblematic aspiration for migrants from the South, embodying North America as the ultimate dream.


POSTCARD 2. FROM BRACEROS’ OFFSPRINGS TO CHICANOS, CHOLOS AND GANGUEROS
The Bracero Program stands out as one of the few immigration and labor policies developed on a binational basis. From 1942 to 1964, Mexicans moved back and forth across the border. In places like Jerez, Zacatecas, and several municipalities in Jalisco, a migratory circuit gradually took shape and persisted beyond the the confines of the Bracero Program. Although the program primarily aimed to recruit young people for agricultural work and even offered career opportunities in the sector, it failed to anticipate that these young workers, whether officially enrolled or not, would establish emotional ties and roots. Over time, marriages and births occurred, giving rise to these first-generation children born from braceras and braceros.

The Bracero Program overlooked the fact that Mexicans workers in various North American states would forge networks, bonds, affections, and lasting ties. Throughout their stay, these workers formed mixed families organically—some with fathers and mothers who became overstayers on their visas, and others who entered, lived, worked and integrated into U.S. society irregularly, without documentation, but with children who are citizens by birthright. Mixed families not only varied in terms of immigration status but also ethnically.

From these dynamics emerged multiple generational identities: the Chicano movement, student movements that birthed the MECHA movement (Chicano Student Movement from Aztlán) from the mythical figure of Aztlán. Simultaneously, in the neighborhood, movements rose from the streets, clamoring for recognition. The film Blood in, Blood Out, narrates a profoundly significant story about youth living and striving for a future within immigration contexts.

Among chicanas and chicanos, workers, cholos and cholas, the perception of youth developed.


POSTCARD 3. A JOURNEY AND PASSAGE: BECOMING UNDOCUMENTED
Once it was established, it was difficult to disrupt it. In the years between the Bracero Program and the 1970s, political upheaval in Central America compelled many, both young and old, to force their way to North America. At the same time, in Mexico, migration northward became seen as the only escape route. Migrant networks across several Mexican states were revitalized; those who had already made the journey did their best to facilitate the arrival of others, one by one or in larger groups.

Later, northerners and southerners, along with dieciocheros and mareros joined the mix. During this period, Salvadoran migrants settled in areas of Los Angeles like Pico Union. It’s important to acknowledge Central Americans, who migrated under different circumstances than Mexicans. Once in North America (for instance, Salvadorans in the 1970s and 1980s), they developed an identity distinct from neighborhood identities, such as those Mexican cholos who had long established themselves in the marginalized neighborhoods of Los Angeles. They were cool... until the Mara Salvatrucha solidified its presence, transforming the landscape and perception of gang culture into a transnational phenomenon. The ethnic map diversified.


POSTCARD 4. 1986: THE AMNESTY GENERATION
In the long history of U.S. immigration policy, the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) signed by President Reagan—supported by the Republican Party—stands out as a pivotal moment. This had far-reaching effects on the future of immigration in the United States. Amnesty, by allowing family reunification, attracted many young people residing in their communities of origin, facilitating the movement across the territory. Before the Amnesty, migrants were predominantly concentrated in the southern border states of the United States. However, the policy ushered in a new wave of immigration characterized by women and young people from Mexico and other parts of Central America, as they used family reunification to settle in various parts of the United States beyond traditional settlement points. This migratory rearrangement led to botched increased family reunification processes and a pull effect for new generations of migrants who viewed Amnesty as an opportunity to settle in the United States.

Following Amnesty, although migrants diversified their settlement points across the United States, immigration networks also intensified. These networks, from oring points to destination cities, wove a dynamic web of coyotaje (smuggling) facilitating migrations from small towns to large urban centers.

Rudy, originally from the Mixteca Poblana, traveled to New York multiple times before the events of 9/11. Rudy now defines himself as a New Yorker from the Bronx, where he learned his skills as a sonidero (a DJ or sound system operator). Today, he continues to play at events in the Mixteca region.


POSTCARD 5. AFTER 9/11: CRIMMIGRATION AND THE DREAM ACT
After the Twin Towers attack, everything shifted. Young people who initially planned to migrate for three to five years found themselves becoming permanent (undocumented) immigrants. With the end of Amnesty, the immigration paradigm underwent a significant change, focusing more on the criminalization of migrants, particularly those who arrived, lived and worked irregularly.

Departing from the south, young Central American women and men embarked on journeys by train—riding La Bestia—to North America. Nothing could deter them, nor could it stop the young Mexicans who saw their future in the United States upon starting work there. One across, a few returned to their places of origin. The path northward was increasingly described as difficult, costly, and fraught with risks.


POSTCARD 6. FROM THE SOUTH, THE NORTH IS LA BESTIA
In the early 2000s, a train filled with people from southern Mexico striving to reach the United States featured across all media. Photographs and documentaries portrayed the predominantly young men and women clinging to the train’s roof. Over two decades, gangs gained control over communities in El Salvador and Honduras. What triggered the breaking point remains unclear—perhaps it was a culmination of events.

What is certain is that in recent decades, many young people from El Salvador and Honduras have been compelled to leave their homes to escape extortion or gang recruitment. They lacked a migration plant, they just wanted to escape. Boarding La Bestia was always the least of their concerns.

In 2016, I met Elvio in Mexico City. He shared with me one afternoon, “If given the chance, I’d like to become a baker.” Elvio never desired to leave his homeland; fear forced him to do it.


POSTCARD 7. CARAVANS: NOTHING CAN BE WORSE
Imagine arriving home, packing a few clothes into a small backpack—essentials that represent your life—and gathering your most important papers. You go to sleep, knowing that at dawn you will join a group of over a thousand people from Honduras who are also seeking to reach the United States.

The 2018 caravan marked a turning point. Since around 2014 or 2015, Mexico had been tightening measures to control its border with Guatemala. Young migrants had been quietly making their way northward for a couple years, navigating through Mexico to reach the United States, albeit under some level of Mexican government oversight. However, this was merely a prelude to a significant shift that would redefine everything: from definitions and methodologies to the entire paradigm of transit migration.

The caravans reshaped human mobility, shifting from clandestinity to hyper-visible mobilizations. Never had so many young people walked together with a unified goal: to find a safer place where their lives are not at risk.


POSTCARD 8. SEEKING A BETTER PLACE TO GROW, LIVE AND IMAGINE
Today, the region spanning Mexico, North, and Central America cannot be understood without considering human mobility. As highlighted in the preceding postcards, migrating and experiencing cycles of mobility and displacement have become more of a norm than an exception. We may not be facing a mobility crisis but a crisis in the ideas of State, borders of that which nations expect to be loyalty of their citizens, no matter if they were born in their territory or not. Young people in the region, today more than ever before, whether by choice or necessity, seek to leave their places of origin in search for better opportunities to develop or to embark on new lives, embracing different cultures and perspectives on the world.