Children’s voices about ‘return’ migration from the United States to Mexico: the 0.5 generation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 2004, our research has focused precisely in those minors who ‘returned’ from the United States to Mexico. Our interest has been to know the social, geographical, educational, and symbolic trajectories of those migrant children and adolescents who are part of the contemporary move of returnees. Based on the children’s narratives (all collected before US November 2016 federal election), we now have a multifaceted response to the question: How and why are young Mexican migrants returning from the United States to Mexico? Some of these returnees were born in Mexico and arrived to the United States when they were young. International migration literature describes them as members of the 1.5 generation. But others were born in the United States and often started school there. They did not ‘return’ to Mexico, they arrived to their parents’ home country for the first time in their lives. We call them the 0.5 generation.