“They Let You Back in the Country?”: Racialized Inequity and the Miseducation of Latinx Undocumented Students in the New Latino South

Abstract

This 3-year multi-site critical ethnography in a focal state in the New Latino South provides insight into the everyday experiences of racism, racialization, and racial inequality that undocumented students face. Specifically, the study showcases how undocumented students’ interactions with their teachers manifest in racialized organizations such as schools. Drawing on interviews and participant observations in two Title I public high schools with rising numbers of Latinx undocumented students, including recently arrived youth, the article illustrates the challenges of racialization in particular, and the resulting lack of belonging these youth experience. Leveraging a framework of racialization, including how schools are racialized organizations (Ray in Am Sociol Rev 84(1):26–53, 2019) where racialized microaggressions devalue Latinx undocumented youth experiences, resistance also allows for interrupting these damaging practices toward this population.