Leisy J. Abrego
My research investigates how immigration laws and the legal statuses they confer on immigrants mediate the educational, occupational, and emotional experiences of undocumented Latino immigrants and their families in the home country. Central to my research agenda is the systematic analysis of “illegality” – the historically contingent, socially, politically, and legally produced condition of immigrants’ legal status and deportability. My work also highlights the unintended mechanisms that empower undocumented immigrants to organize collectively to create change in US society. Finally, I also examine how gendered structural constraints, along with gendered family norms and expectations intersect with legal status and inform immigrants’ behavior and integration experiences.
My first book, Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders (Stanford University Press, 2014), offers a first-hand look at Salvadoran transnational families, how the parents fare in the US, and the experiences of the children back home. It captures the tragedy of these families' daily living arrangements, but also delves deeper to expose the structural context that creates and sustains patterns of inequality in their well-being.
If you are interested in reading any of my articles, please email me for a copy. (abrego at ucla dot edu)
Address: Bunche Hall
UCLA
My first book, Sacrificing Families: Navigating Laws, Labor, and Love Across Borders (Stanford University Press, 2014), offers a first-hand look at Salvadoran transnational families, how the parents fare in the US, and the experiences of the children back home. It captures the tragedy of these families' daily living arrangements, but also delves deeper to expose the structural context that creates and sustains patterns of inequality in their well-being.
If you are interested in reading any of my articles, please email me for a copy. (abrego at ucla dot edu)
Address: Bunche Hall
UCLA
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status but short of permanent residency, we demonstrate that even when they are legally present, the implementation practices of a multilayered immigration policy regime may cause them harm. Our analyses draw on 108 qualitative
interviews with immigrants who have been granted humanitarian relief, including U Visa holders, beneficiaries of the Violence against Women Act provisions, political asylees, and Temporary Protected Status recipients. As a result of “legal
violence,” these legally present immigrants remain vulnerable to blocked mobility, persistent fear of deportation, and instability, confusion, and self-blame.
legal statuses experience current immigration laws. Based on ethnographic observations and over 200 interviews conducted between 1998 and 2010 with immigrants in Los Angeles and Phoenix and individuals in sending communities, this study reveals how the convergence and implementation of immigration and criminal law constitute forms of violence. Drawing on theories of structural and symbolic violence, the authors use the analytic category “legal violence” to capture the normalized but cumulatively injurious effects of the law. The analysis focuses on three central and interrelated areas of immigrants’ lives—work, family, and school—to expose how the criminalization of immigrants at the federal, state, and local levels is not only exclusionary but also generates violent effects for individual immigrants and their families, affecting everyday lives and long-term incorporation processes."
although all undocumented immigrants are legally banned, their identities, sense of belonging, and interpretation of their status vary. Based on ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews of Latino undocumented immigrants from 2001 to 2010, I examine how illegality is experienced differently by social position. The findings suggest that the role of life-stage at migration and work-versus-school contexts importantly inform immigrants’ legal consciousness. Fear predominates in the legal consciousness of first-generation undocumented immigrants, while the legal consciousness of the 1.5 generation is more heavily infused with stigma. Fear and stigma are both barriers to claims-making, but they may affect undocumented immigrants’ potential for collective mobilization in different ways.
deportation. Based on ethnographic observations and dozens of in-depth interviews conducted between 1998 and 2010 with Guatemalan, Mexican, and Salvadoran immigrant mothers and their children, we contend that the implementation of contemporary U.S. immigration laws are a form of legal violence. These laws restrict immigrant women’s ability to mother their children and bring suffering to women when they try to fulfill their parental responsibilities. As we demonstrate, the current system separates families, blocks access to dire social services, and harms documented, undocumented, and liminally legal Latina mothers alike.
have few means out of poverty. We provide a blueprint for assessing the future prospects of undocumented youth by offering a brief analysis of immigration and educational policies that currently affect the U.S. undocumented youth population and summarizing what is known about undocumented students’ educational and occupational barriers and opportunities, particularly as they transition out of high school. We also discuss potential solutions to improve their circumstances and tap into their talents. Without broader means to obtain a postsecondary education and legally participate in adult life, these young men and women are a vulnerable population at risk for poverty and hardship. However, if given opportunities to pursue higher education and work legally in this country, these bilingual, bicultural students would benefit U.S. taxpayers and the economy overall.
and adolescent and young adult children of migrants in El Salvador, I demonstrate that the gender of migrant parents centrally affects how well their families are faring. Gender structurally differentiates immigrant parents’ experiences through labor market opportunities in the United States. Simultaneously, gendered social expectations inform immigrants’ approaches to parental responsibilities and remitting behaviors. Remittances—the monies parents send—directly shape children’s economic well-being in El Salvador. I find that even though immigrant mothers are structurally more disadvantaged than immigrant fathers, mother-away families are often thriving economically because of mothers’ extreme sacrifices.
California Assembly Bill 540. The law grants undocumented immigrant students an exemption from out-of-state tuition, thereby making some forms of higher education more accessible. Despite the narrow actionable aspects of the law, it unintentionally legitimizes this disenfranchised group. This longitudinal study of undocumented immigrant youth consists of in-depth interviews before, shortly after, and four years after the passage of the law. The findings demonstrate that AB 540 immediately relieved stigma and later provided a socially acceptable identity that, within a legal consciousness informed by meritocracy, empowered these students to mobilize the law in a number of unforeseen ways. The case strongly suggests that it is possible for unintended constitutive functions to have more transformative effects on the daily lives of targeted beneficiaries than the intended instrumental objectives of law.
Special Issues by Leisy J. Abrego
status but short of permanent residency, we demonstrate that even when they are legally present, the implementation practices of a multilayered immigration policy regime may cause them harm. Our analyses draw on 108 qualitative
interviews with immigrants who have been granted humanitarian relief, including U Visa holders, beneficiaries of the Violence against Women Act provisions, political asylees, and Temporary Protected Status recipients. As a result of “legal
violence,” these legally present immigrants remain vulnerable to blocked mobility, persistent fear of deportation, and instability, confusion, and self-blame.
legal statuses experience current immigration laws. Based on ethnographic observations and over 200 interviews conducted between 1998 and 2010 with immigrants in Los Angeles and Phoenix and individuals in sending communities, this study reveals how the convergence and implementation of immigration and criminal law constitute forms of violence. Drawing on theories of structural and symbolic violence, the authors use the analytic category “legal violence” to capture the normalized but cumulatively injurious effects of the law. The analysis focuses on three central and interrelated areas of immigrants’ lives—work, family, and school—to expose how the criminalization of immigrants at the federal, state, and local levels is not only exclusionary but also generates violent effects for individual immigrants and their families, affecting everyday lives and long-term incorporation processes."
although all undocumented immigrants are legally banned, their identities, sense of belonging, and interpretation of their status vary. Based on ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews of Latino undocumented immigrants from 2001 to 2010, I examine how illegality is experienced differently by social position. The findings suggest that the role of life-stage at migration and work-versus-school contexts importantly inform immigrants’ legal consciousness. Fear predominates in the legal consciousness of first-generation undocumented immigrants, while the legal consciousness of the 1.5 generation is more heavily infused with stigma. Fear and stigma are both barriers to claims-making, but they may affect undocumented immigrants’ potential for collective mobilization in different ways.
deportation. Based on ethnographic observations and dozens of in-depth interviews conducted between 1998 and 2010 with Guatemalan, Mexican, and Salvadoran immigrant mothers and their children, we contend that the implementation of contemporary U.S. immigration laws are a form of legal violence. These laws restrict immigrant women’s ability to mother their children and bring suffering to women when they try to fulfill their parental responsibilities. As we demonstrate, the current system separates families, blocks access to dire social services, and harms documented, undocumented, and liminally legal Latina mothers alike.
have few means out of poverty. We provide a blueprint for assessing the future prospects of undocumented youth by offering a brief analysis of immigration and educational policies that currently affect the U.S. undocumented youth population and summarizing what is known about undocumented students’ educational and occupational barriers and opportunities, particularly as they transition out of high school. We also discuss potential solutions to improve their circumstances and tap into their talents. Without broader means to obtain a postsecondary education and legally participate in adult life, these young men and women are a vulnerable population at risk for poverty and hardship. However, if given opportunities to pursue higher education and work legally in this country, these bilingual, bicultural students would benefit U.S. taxpayers and the economy overall.
and adolescent and young adult children of migrants in El Salvador, I demonstrate that the gender of migrant parents centrally affects how well their families are faring. Gender structurally differentiates immigrant parents’ experiences through labor market opportunities in the United States. Simultaneously, gendered social expectations inform immigrants’ approaches to parental responsibilities and remitting behaviors. Remittances—the monies parents send—directly shape children’s economic well-being in El Salvador. I find that even though immigrant mothers are structurally more disadvantaged than immigrant fathers, mother-away families are often thriving economically because of mothers’ extreme sacrifices.
California Assembly Bill 540. The law grants undocumented immigrant students an exemption from out-of-state tuition, thereby making some forms of higher education more accessible. Despite the narrow actionable aspects of the law, it unintentionally legitimizes this disenfranchised group. This longitudinal study of undocumented immigrant youth consists of in-depth interviews before, shortly after, and four years after the passage of the law. The findings demonstrate that AB 540 immediately relieved stigma and later provided a socially acceptable identity that, within a legal consciousness informed by meritocracy, empowered these students to mobilize the law in a number of unforeseen ways. The case strongly suggests that it is possible for unintended constitutive functions to have more transformative effects on the daily lives of targeted beneficiaries than the intended instrumental objectives of law.