Translate 
Abstract
ABSTRACT In the United States, rural areas are growing as new immigrant destinations (NIDs) where refugees and other precarious migrant families settle to work within agro-industries such as poultry processing. Often lacking resources and infrastructure geared toward refugee-migrants, we argue rural NIDs place greater demands, socially and economically, on youth in these families. Focusing on refugee-migrant youth aged 18–25 years, we explore the “life-work” (Mullings 2021) youth perform in their homes, workplaces and the community. We argue that their household and sibling care, waged work and translation and culture brokering make social and economic life possible for refugee-migrant families in rural areas, but it differentially impacts youth themselves based upon their gender, legal status, English language proficiency, birth order and their age upon arrival to the United States. Focusing on refugee-migrant youth in a small, rural NID illustrates their centrality as flexible life-workers, enabling a flexible agro-industrial labor force, contributing to the family wage and acting as agents of community integration.
Published Version
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
