Navigating New Realities: Dr. Canizales on Migrant Children's Journey

Interview With Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales
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Welcome to Unsolicited Perspectives
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Bruce Anthony: Welcome. First of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. I'm Bruce Anthony, your host here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcast. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch our video podcast.

Bruce Anthony: Rate, review, like, comment, share, share with your friends, share with your family, hell, even share with your enemies. 

Introducing Dr. Steph: A Deep Dive into Unaccompanied Minors
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Bruce Anthony: On today's episode, I'll be interviewing Dr. Steph. She's a professor. An author. More importantly, she's done work and research about children that are unaccompanied minors migrating here to the United States.

Bruce Anthony: This is an important issue, and I'm looking forward to this interview. So that's enough of this intro. Let's get to the show.

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Dr. Steph's Personal Journey and Research
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Bruce Anthony: As I said at the top, I'm here with Dr. Stephanie Carnesales, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a faculty director of Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Innovation, say that five times fast, and author of Sin Padres y Pepeles. Did I say that right? Dr. Steph.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Perfect.

Bruce Anthony: Okay. Because ladies and gentlemen, y'all know I have a speech impediment.

Bruce Anthony: I stutter. It's bad. I was trying to get all that in, but I did, but I want to welcome Dr. Steph to the show. We're going to be talking about some really important issues and I'm excited about it. So thank you so much for joining the show.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

Bruce Anthony: Absolutely. I start every conversation with my guests with the same thing.

Bruce Anthony: Let's start at the beginning. 

Growing Up as a Child of Immigrants
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Bruce Anthony: You grew up in Los Angeles and you're the daughter of Salvadorian immigrants. And your parents were not only immigrants, but they were unaccompanied youth [00:02:00] on their trip to this country. How did your upbringing and your parents experience shape the person that you are today?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah, that is like the single most important question, I think, to the trajectory of my career. I grew up knowing I was the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants. And that was pretty much it, uh, for people that know the history of Salvadoran migration, or Central American migration broadly, I would say. Uh, it is a history sort of cloaked in silence because of the reasons of people's migration and also sort of the U.S response to the arrival of Central Americans in the U.S So, there are histories of civil wars, and repression. And, um, my dad talks about growing up, seeing people just get shot like in front of him and how that sort of desensitized his, um, [00:03:00] childhood. Right. And, um, it is something we continue to see in Central America today, but both of my parents were very much those silent first generation immigrants.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: We didn't really know. I'm, I'm the second of four. Uh, we sort of came out and said, So I'm the second of the first two.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: My older sister and I did really hear a lot of migration stories. I think, um, what we knew mostly is like what happened after my parents met

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: and how our family came to be. Uh, so I didn't really know a lot about my parents background.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And I think that's what, especially being in LA when I, Was at UCLA and I started to learn about Latino migration, uh, Latino history, uh, Latinos in Los Angeles. Right. It sort of like piqued my interest of, okay, well, why do we keep hearing about Mexicans or the Chicano movement or Mexican Americans and where do Central Americans fit in there?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Uh, I took one Central [00:04:00] American in the U S class at UCLA. The first time the class was ever offered there. And it was sort of. My little pocket of the migration world. It sort of set me on a trajectory of research on Central American youth, which was, I was interested in like myself, you know, like I wanted to know how did my parents history shape who I am, what I am, what I do. Um, so I, I sort of set along this research journey and, What ended up happening along the way is that I learned that my parents grew up unaccompanied in Los

Bruce Anthony: Mm 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I started to do my work on undocumented, undocumented youth. I came to learn about unaccompanied youth in Los Angeles. You know, sort of along the way.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And as I went home from, I was living in Koreatown, went home to Orange County where my parents were living at the time. And I would tell them, you wouldn't believe these stories I'm hearing. You [00:05:00] wouldn't believe, you know, kids are growing up by themselves. This kid from Guatemala, this kid from El Salvador, and it was in 2014. That my dad sort of was like, well, yeah, that's kind of like, why are you surprised that what, you know, how parents are, right? Like

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: you didn't really discover this thing. Like we've been doing it, you

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: know? So that, that was very much my dad. Um, and at the time in 2014, folks might remember that was the unaccompanied child migrant crisis at the

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: board.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: It was

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: the year of the humanitarian crisis. Uh, so the term unaccompanied, um. Became sort of mainstream that year. And, um, that's kind of what started to shape the conversations I was having with my parents. Um, you know, what do you mean? My, my dad was a garment factory worker at 17. He was a carpet installer at 17. He went to New York and back because he couldn't find work in LA for a while. Uh, my mom, [00:06:00] I finally asked her like, What about you? And as I talk about in my book, women experience a lot of interpersonal violence, gendered violence, sexual violence. So the conversation with my mom, I've only had one. Uh, it was very tear filled. And I learned that a lot of what I was uncovering about young girls in LA in 2015, 2016 was very much the experience of my mom. Um, So it didn't necessarily, uh, their experience didn't inform my interest in the topic, but it did feel full circle when I realized, oh, I am uncovering the story of my family by studying unaccompanied children from Central America or Latin America to Los Angeles.

Bruce Anthony: And I, I have so many questions from that. 

Understanding Unaccompanied Minors
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Bruce Anthony: For our audience, let's give them a clear definition of what a unaccompanied minor or child actually is [00:07:00] in the migration process. So can you give us a, a clear, kind of like this is the scenario?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yes. An unaccompanied child, according to the federal government definition is a child who at the point of apprehension. out of border or port of entry, they are unaccompanied by a parent or an adult caregiver and they do not have lawful immigration status.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So that is the federal definition. The way I define unaccompanied children is someone who migrates without an adult caregiver or a parent and who also remains without a caregiver or a parent. In the U. S. Context,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: right? So when you're reading my work, none of the people that I interview or work with were apprehended at the border, but that does not preclude them from the unaccompanied child experience, right? In fact, it's heightened in that there was [00:08:00] no system of care around them, right?

Bruce Anthony: we're gonna get into the weeds here. Uh, so I'm gonna reserve some of my. Questions for later because I'm going to detour a little bit, but it's interesting that, and also not that your parents wouldn't share the stories of that journey with their children, because oftentimes parents try to protect their children from bad things.

Bruce Anthony: Were there ever any moments growing up, um, that, that, that that flashed when you were studying and doing your research that flashed. Oh yeah. I remember my dad making this comment or my mom saying this when I was younger that said, well, wait a minute. Yeah. My parents. Did go through this. I'm remembering little stuff that they said or did that that 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: yeah, 

Bruce Anthony: yeah, okay So do you have any [00:09:00] examples? 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: yes. Um, my dad talks a lot about, uh, his first jobs in the U S

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I didn't know they were when he was 17 years old and that he was sending money to his mom. You know, I knew that he. Worked as I mentioned, uh, installing carpets and that the person he worked for was a Salva older Salvadoran man Who refused to pay him for nine ten months, right? I remember my dad saying that he was the first in his family to migrate and then his four younger siblings sort of followed and That each one sort of relied on him to sort of set the pace of what was going to happen for them in Los Angeles. I remember my mom talking a lot about, um, loneliness as a child and talking about how my grandma, her mom wasn't around and riding the [00:10:00] bus to school alone and having to figure out how to get to the, Uh, junior high or middle school where she was assigned.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: It wasn't in Pico Union. It was like across town, right? She was getting bused there. Uh, so things like that where, I mean, in hindsight, like, duh, you're a child laborer, you are an unaccompanied child. Um, my, my mom also talked a lot about, um, living with different people. And I, in the book, I do talk about young people who have long settled relatives, but there's not, that doesn't necessarily mean you're protected.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Right. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're cared for. Uh, so in that converse, the one conversation I had with my mom about being unaccompanied, she did tell me, you know, it was, it was really uncomfortable to say like, I need a undergarments, right. Or, Hey, my body's changing. I might need to go to the store, [00:11:00] you know, things like that. Um, that now I realize, Oh yeah, those are features of being an unaccompanied child.

Bruce Anthony: okay There's more questions that I have but I feel like the questions that I have are going to be specifically related to your To your book, and we don't want to get too personal talking about your mother and your father. So let's get personal talking about you, specifically your academic and personal journey.

Challenges and Milestones in Academia
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Bruce Anthony: Can you tell me about your career milestones? Obviously, you're a professor at Berkeley. Ladies and gentlemen, Berkeley. So 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: know, I have to tell myself that in the mirror sometimes.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I'm 

Bruce Anthony: mean, Berkeley, What are some of the key milestones and challenges that you had along the way?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah. Um, so, I cannot say like what my big [00:12:00] milestones are. I think I, I think of my milestones, my successes as very much like serendipitous. I was at the right place at the right time. I started studying unaccompanied kids in 2012. Um, someone just told, you know, I wanted to study undocumented Central American youth organizing in LA. And someone told me there's a group of kids that meets at this intersection, the Starbucks at this intersection in Pico union on Friday nights. Pull up right like and and I did and it turns out they were all Unaccompanied youth garment workers in downtown LA and I was like wait a minute. What do you mean? You were 12 years old in a garment factory Sending money to your your mom in Honduras or Guatemala so I I Was in the field doing the work by the time the crisis of 2014 hit. I was one of the very few people as a graduate student that [00:13:00] had at that point, two years of original data on the, in, I studied incorporation or integration of. This population. So, um, when it came time to write the op eds and give the opinions and do all the things I was, I was ready to do that. And I don't think that's very common for a graduate student at my, at my career stage. So that sort of serendipitous placement put me on the sort of fast track. So when I think about how I got to Berkeley, I'm like, I couldn't tell you like, it's all been a blur.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And I'm like, I remember my advisor telling me just like, keep your head down and do good work. Just do good work.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Um, so I do feel like it's been a rocket ship and I, I don't know when. I got on it, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Specifically, when I think about challenges, though, I and I'm a middle child, um, I am the person that is like, I'm going to leave a mark and you're all going to [00:14:00] know I was here, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: That is sort of my personality. So when I got to grad school, and there weren't very many Latina graduate students, um, In sociology at the University of Southern California, USC, where I got my PhD, and there was sort of a history of, um, discrimination, to put it lightly, you know, like marginalization, um, sort of discouragement, uh, of Latina students, and I remember my first year, go ahead,

Bruce Anthony: Let you specifically said Latina

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: mm

Bruce Anthony: not Latino. So was it specific to let Latin women or gender didn't matter? Yeah.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I think proportionately more women were in the Latino broad category. Right? So there tended to be more Latina women [00:15:00] than Latino men admitted to our program.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I don't that I can't say that that was by design, but that kind of was how it was. There. We're like three generations of Latino women ahead of me that when I came out with what I'm about to share They were like, oh, yeah that same thing happened to me and in that same class um, it was my first year of graduate school and I Hadn't had taken one sociology class as an undergrad.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So I was enrolled in now a full time PhD sociology program. And I was way in over my head. Um, and a professor, I remember very explicitly called me out in front of the class one day and said something about if we were to describe Stephanie, we were talking about gender that week. If we were to describe Stephanie's demeanor, um, how would we describe it? Um,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: excuse me, miss ma'am, right? So she, she ends up describing me as unintelligent.[00:16:00] 

Bruce Anthony: Whoa.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yes. Not asking intellectual questions and basically, like, incapable of occupying a serious role in that space.

Bruce Anthony: This is your professor. Now, personally, how much did it take for you internally to not take her outside and two piece her? Because that, that would have been 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I wish that were my response. I wish that had been, I wish anger had been my response, right? Like, indignation, like, how dare you? But it was very much the narrative I came into grad school with, right? Like, It was never my plan. I, again, I fell into the thing that led me to the thing. And, um, I was like, maybe she's right. I remember feeling, feeling humiliated. I remember going to the bathroom during our break. It was like a three hour [00:17:00] class. We had a break at the 1. 5 hour Mark. And I cried and cried and I came back and I sat through the rest of the class. And you better believe I never said a single word in another class, unless the professor, it was like an immigration class or the professor was like, openly supportive of first gen students. Um, so my middle child syndrome kicks in, you know, like I'm like,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I'm going to prove everybody wrong.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I'm going to do this. Um, so in terms of, I, when I think about my career, I do think the challenges, right? Last March, I was at a conference presenting my research and a woman came up to me after a senior scholar in sociology came up to me and said, You know, you can put Rolls Royce rims on a Volkswagen and you're still just a Volkswagen. She told me after my quick little 15 minute presentation. So people say these things and I'm like, all right, let's go. Like, let's, let's go. You know, and I [00:18:00] think about my advisor telling me just, Do good work. Focus. Do good work. And I'm much more motivated by seeing justice and equity and kindness and empathy and inclusion of the people that I do my research with and that I'm deeply connected to, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Like family history ties. I'm much more motivated by like, I'm, I am here for that. I am not here for that. Whatever performative thing that we're doing. But if you want to bring out my middle child, like I will do that.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: We will go there. Right.

Bruce Anthony: How do you take the lessons that, that you obviously learn from the interactions from these professors and apply it to how you teach now?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah. I, I assume baseline, and this is not because I assume deficit [00:19:00] of my students, but I'm going to assume that we're all showing up in this space, feeling inadequate, afraid, and underprepared.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And, and that I think motivates my kindness. And I remember being in, um, undergraduate or graduate seminars and the question, the phrasing of a question sort of assumes that we all read that book,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: or we all sort of watch that documentary, um, or whatever it was, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And I just assumed none of us did. So I'm going to start back here and walk us through it. So we're all on the same page. And, and I tried to, to close the gap so that a student doesn't feel, um, Like they just listened to an hour long lecture and they didn't know what the starting point was. Right. So I just kind of assumed that we're all a little scared and still as a professor, I'm still a little scared.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: There's always that one student that read the book I didn't read. Right. And then they asked me, what about the, [00:20:00] and I'm like, uh, I'm going to go Google that and I'll be right back.

Bruce Anthony: Okay.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So yeah, I don't think we can all ever really know the full,

Bruce Anthony: Mm hmm.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: and I try to just walk students through what I know and then fill the gaps from there. 

Bruce Anthony: So let's get to your book.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: You write a book and it's specific, specifically focusing on unaccompanied migrant youth. 

The Emotional and Material Struggles of Unaccompanied Youth
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Bruce Anthony: Mm What are some of the most surprising and impactful stories that you uncover during your six years of research? And also, ethically, because you're dealing with a very vulnerable population.

Bruce Anthony: How did you approach that? Because they're going to be people that are going to be a little apprehensive about talking. So how did you, how did you [00:21:00] approach that ethically?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah. So I'll say to answer the first question, some of the most impactful or surprising components of the work, I, I would say, you know, thinking back to that first moment when someone told me go to that Starbucks on the corner. The whole thing threw me off, right? Um, I had come to the interest of studying undocumented Central American youth from the perspective of, um, or youth organizing. I was involved with the immigrant youth movement, with the sort of organizing around deferred action for childhood arrivals, and, um, 2011 and 2012, I was involved with, um, this organization called Dream Team Los Angeles, named after the Dream Act, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And the Dreamer movement. So when I came to realize that there were unaccompanied youth garment workers, I was just like, [00:22:00] I thought, I thought we were all at college, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I thought we were dreamers. I thought we were cap and gown wearing like a population. Um, so, so the whole concept was shocking. And you know, at the time in 2012, the term unaccompanied wasn't in my vocabulary. I, I sort of came up with this term unparented. Right. Because they had brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles living down the street.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: But what was missing was the parent. Um, and that, that obviously, you know, one of my dissertation advisors was like, well, don't they call their parents back home? They have parents. They're parented, but just not in the way. Right. So

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I was like, thank goodness unaccompanied is a thing now, because that's actually what I mean. Um, so the whole concept was, um, Was fascinating, impactful and through me for a loop. Um, one thing that I try to capture in the book. Is two potential [00:23:00] pathways of coming of age because I talk about immigration in the way that sociologists of migration do as an incorporation question. How do young people experience the arrival settlement adjustment that whole process, right? Which we call incorporation. I tried to map that on to the transition to adulthood. So these two passages happening at the same time. What struck me in doing that work is that there is a material component to being unaccompanied in that young people have to work to survive and they experience deep poverty and they're hungry and they can't buy the pair of denim pants that they want, even though they sew denim pants all day long in a factory, right? There's that material component, but the transition to adulthood brought with it, the emotional component. Right. My body's changing. I have my [00:24:00] first crush. Um, I don't have friends. Uh, the, all of the angst of being a teenager coming into young adulthood, and then the emotional component of being the sort of satellite member of the family that remained behind, or yeah, that remained behind. Um, so all of these, You know, I'm tracking these two passages, and then I'm tracking two processes, right? The material dealings and then the emotional, um, effect and how those two things are interconnected. The poverty hurt their feelings,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: right? The, the, I work so hard and my family is still suffering hurts their feelings, right? There's this, all this interconnectedness. Um, and the Two chapters, um, sort of data driven chapters of the book are about young people who [00:25:00] experience a positive adaptation, is chapter four, and young people who experience, um, what they call in Spanish perdicion, which is translated to perdition. A deep sense of loss.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So I see that as like emotionally and materially positive adaptation emotionally and material negative perdition. Um, and that the differentiating factor between the two is Meaningful social relationships. 

Bruce Anthony: I, there is so there, I have so many questions because they lose their childhood. They're in, they're an anchor they're working. It's hard enough just as a full grown adult 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: With legal status, speaking English, right, Yeah, 

Bruce Anthony: To manage in, in today's climate, like, I swear, no matter how much money I make, there's more bills. I [00:26:00] don't know how I do it.

Bruce Anthony: Right. And 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: come from? 

Bruce Anthony: the bills just the government. No, I'm just playing. Um, so there's that aspect. There's the aspect of they're working illegally because children don't work in sweatshops in America, supposedly.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Supposedly there are no sweatshops in

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: America, Right. Yeah, 

Bruce Anthony: but you're telling me there are some in downtown Los Angeles. And since they're undocumented and the job is illegal, maybe they get their pay like, uh, or maybe they don't like your father.

Bruce Anthony: So, and they're responsible for also sending money back to their family. And there also must be some guilt associated with no matter how bad things are here for me, my family is still suffering. In a country that, as your father would say, people are just getting shot, right in front of your face out in open.[00:27:00] 

Bruce Anthony: How, how does that, I don't, I don't understand how the majority, what is, okay, what is the success rate? How many unaccompanied migrant youth get here? And actually like your parents somehow make it raise children that go to college and 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Become 

Bruce Anthony: the next step. Yes. 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: talk about this stuff. Right.

Bruce Anthony: how many stories of that? Cause I'm so interested in, in understanding the, the psychology.

Bruce Anthony: Of losing your childhood, having so much responsibility put on you as a young person, and then how that affects you as you get older. Is there ever any time to just sit back and reflect when you do like your parents, when you have accomplished so much as to be like, we made it, or is there still a little bit of guilt of, yeah, but they had, my family had to suffer.

Bruce Anthony: A lot longer [00:28:00] than I anticipated. I know that was a lot. I've thrown a lot at you, but these are the things that are running in my head right now.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I think it ties back to your, the second half of your original question, which was the ethical,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: like, what are the ethical components of this? Right. So part of being able to run this study for six years was that I made, um, uh, contractual agreement that I would not maintain the contact information or identifying information of the

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: people that I interviewed. So for me to be able to say like, what happened, um, Right. I, I ran this research from 2012 to 2018. Of course, through that time, I developed my own meaningful relationships with a set of young people and we still are connected when I see them in Pico Union or downtown, or I'm invited to an event. Um, I don't keep up with anyone on social.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I like, there's no connection. You would never know who is a part of my research, but I can't do a [00:29:00] follow up study. Right. Um, to really understand what is the success rate and because, yeah, because they were not apprehended at the border, there's no record of their arrival, where they went. It's all just in like, it's all here.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Right. And that's what we know, like, what's, what's here. Um, So that's, yeah, that's, I, I couldn't really say what the success rate is. And, and that's actually something, and maybe we'll get into this later, but my next project is like, what did happen to all these kids since 2014? Where are

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: they? What are, did they graduate school?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Are they caught? Like what happened? Right. The sort of long term story. Um, but in terms of the kids that I studied who were not apprehended and I sort of spent just everyday time with, I don't really know. Um, what I do know is that when I asked the last question of every interview, and I did 75 [00:30:00] interviews when I asked people, where do you see yourself? And I originally started with 10 years. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Uh, and they would say, can't even think that far ahead.

Bruce Anthony: Hmm.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Five years, right? Like, so, okay, five years. What do you see yourself doing? Uh, maybe I, I would have learned English. I would like to have seen my mom again.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Right. That I, um, my siblings, you know, last time I hugged my brother, I was 14 years old. Now I'm 27. Right. Whatever it may

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: be. Right.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And, and they, they would tell me in interviews, um, I promised them I would go back. They thought my research participants really thought that they would return home as teenagers still. Right. They come to the U. S. They realize you pay for every literally. This is what they say.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: You pay [00:31:00] for everything here. Laundry, water, lights, bus, cell phone. You're taxed informally by your employer who says you

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: need to pay taxes. Well, to who, to you, you know, like,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: um, so the money, like we were saying earlier, like the bills pile up, the money's just leaving faster than you can make it. So there's just all of these circumstances that young people aren't living the life in the U S that they imagined they would. Um, and they're not experiencing the success as we would define it. Right. So they are, the book actually ends with telling the story of like, well, how do they define success. 

Redefining Success for Unaccompanied Minors
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Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And it is in part of an emotional survival strategy to say, well, success can't be home ownership anymore. Guess what? You know, like success can't be college success has to be. Um, I didn't have friends when I got here and now I do.

Bruce Anthony: Mm.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: My mom was hungry when I left and now she's not like the marker of success has to [00:32:00] move so that they can cope with the everyday suffering and the pain of the experience of being unaccompanied and undocumented.

The Harsh Realities Unaccompanied Minors Escape
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Bruce Anthony: This is gonna try to transition into my next question, but I'm curious, um, and it's important for my audience to know, what are these unaccompanied minors, children leaving? What is so bad there that even being here? And basically having your wages garnished or not getting paid at all and struggling to eat or maybe even find a place to sleep.

Bruce Anthony: What are they escaping? That isn't so bad.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah. 

Historical Context of Violence and Poverty
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Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: [00:33:00] Um, I talk in the book about extreme poverty and everyday violence, like legal violence, um, and also illegal forms of violence against young people that cut their future short. So when we talk about young people, uh, losing out on their childhood, they were losing out on their childhood when they were, you know, Two, three, four years old, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: In the origin country, there was one young person that I interviewed who told me he started shining shoes in Guatemala City at the age of three. Um, and that was his job. And his sister had another job and the mom had another job. So it wasn't that he was following his mom around shining, you know, that was his job. Um, so young people are leaving behind some of the highest rates of extreme poverty globally. Uh, but in sort of rural parts of Central America and Mexico today as well, uh, that is the reality that young people have been working alongside their [00:34:00] families or sometimes alone to overcome extreme poverty and young people tell me in interviews that they remember. Their mother's crying that they didn't have out of guilt that they didn't have enough food to go around for the four or five siblings at the table that there would be up one piece of meat and each sibling would take a bite of a piece of meat and that would hold them over for the week.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Um,

U.S. Involvement in Central American Destabilization
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Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: yeah, and I and in terms of the violence we hear about it constantly, maybe not in the way it should be framed. Um, historically and with serious context, especially in terms of the US' role in creating the violence. But,

Bruce Anthony: and gentlemen, You hear what Dr. Steph said? She just backed up what I've been saying that I said a couple of weeks ago, that Americans don't want to talk about our involvement in Central and South America in the 20th century, throughout the 20th century, how we [00:35:00] just destroyed governments and put people in place that maybe we're corrupt.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yes. And while telling Americans like it's, it's for our safety, they're communists, right? Like the fear of communist spread in the western hemisphere and, um, funding. Millions of dollars per day, governments that were repressing, persecuting, uh, in Guatemala, full on genocide of indigenous communities that were organizing against their repression, uh, and the privatization of their land for U.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: S. corporate profit. Um, right? And, and, I, I mean, I tell my students, What you need to know is that the U. S. was funding militaries that were enacting scorched earth campaigns where they would light villages on fire from the outside in so people couldn't escape and that freed up the land. And then [00:36:00] they were, you know, next thing you know, private markets, right? Um, so the U. S. has its hand in destabilizing the economy, the government, um, and basically The social infrastructure of these countries. So kids are coming of age and I really talk about it as kids are coming of age in a, in a, in societies where they can't imagine their futures. Sure, they're unauthorized, unaccompanied migrants. They're also just kids. Thinking about their futures, right? So when they're facing extreme violence and poverty, and they've been working at the ages of three, four, five, six in their origin countries, they come to the U S right. Uh, I, I talk in the book about one young person who, uh, was sewing track suits for Adidas. At home in his living room in Guatemala. [00:37:00] So when he comes to the U S and he works at a garment factory, he's like, Oh, I'm not doing it by hand. This is mobility, right? Like this is

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: skill. This is technology. This is advancement because he remembers how tedious it was to sew the Adidas logo on these track jackets.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Um, so it's things like that, right? I'm not working in the field now. I'm a fruit packer. So that looks like improvement. Improvement. Um, but it's the job that any average American walking down the street would say, absolutely. I'm not taking that right

Bruce Anthony: Okay. 

Policymakers and Public Perception
---

Bruce Anthony: So what findings from your research? And all your work and your book, do you think it's, are critical for policymakers and the public to truly understand? We touched on a little bit here, but specifically for the policymakers and for people who watch certain news organizations [00:38:00] or read certain news, papers that get, that paint one aspect of these.

Bruce Anthony: Unaccompanied children migrating here to the U. S. That's important for everybody to know. I know that was a loaded question. I'm giving you a lot of loaded questions today, 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So my answers are a little long winded, but

Bruce Anthony: let's go for it. That was a long winded question.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Um, yeah. What policymakers need to know. 

Kamala Harris and Root Causes of Migration
---

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I think, you know, Kamala is back on the scene prominently back on the scene. And I remember in June of 2021. When Kamala, who as Vice President Kamala Harris, not just any Kamala, Kamala Harris was charged with, um, the root causes of Central American migration, the root causes of migration.

Bruce Anthony: Can you repeat that again for the people in the back that [00:39:00] are swearing up and down that she is a border czar? What she was actually tasked with?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: was, was getting at the root causes of migration. That was the agenda. It wasn't actually the border, right? So to her credit, it wasn't border policy. It was root causes. But June 2021, first trip to Guatemala, and what is the messaging? Literally says twice for anyone coming to the U. S. Do not come. Do not come. That was the line. And I remember like, wow, you really missed the entire root causes, you know, by just telling people don't come. 

Understanding Unaccompanied Child Labor
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Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And I think for the for us to have a serious conversation about why unaccompanied Children are ending up as low wage workers. It's all over the New York Times. It's all over Washington Post, Reuters, every, you know, everyone's talking about unaccompanied child laborers. And they're talking about kids who were apprehended at the border, who are [00:40:00] released to sponsor, you know, like, that whole thing. If we want to get at the issue of unaccompanied child labor, we need to understand root causes. Right? Like, seriously understand them. And in the historical context that you and I were just talking about, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: 1950s. On. There's a reason why the majority of children coming from Guatemala are indigenous. Let's talk about what the governments in Cahoots have been doing to indigenous communities that is destabilizing first adult men. Then women, then families, and now lone child migrants. Let's talk about how these gangs came to be in El Salvador that are now targeting teenage boys. They were born in Los Angeles, California, and through deportation policy sent to El Salvador, and then they organized and proliferated throughout. Central. Let's actually talk about the root causes, right? I think that is the most important thing. Um, and then the other thing to take into account is [00:41:00] that when we are developing policies or responses to the issues of unaccompanied child migration, we are coming at it from our perspective.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Western society where childhood looks like this,

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And we expect families to be organized in these ways. And because of that, we do not hold space for the reality that kids are coming from societies where childhood means something different, where the role of a child is different, where children have been exposed to the suffering of family members that they now feel responsible for, and that they are not alone. actively engaged in care networks, right? They are carers. As much as they are recipients of care, they give care to their families. So when kids come to the U. S. And they're found in workplaces and they say, well, I'm working to support my [00:42:00] siblings, my family, my grandma, whoever it may be. And then we deport the child, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Or we punish the family or we take a punitive, which we love to do here. It's like

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: our cozy spot is just punishing people, right? We take this punitive approach to child labor without asking, why is this child working to begin with? And how can we meet that need? Right? Like how do we respond? And if they are carers, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Like children are involved in networks of care. How do we. Reinforce the network of care so children can step back and live that ideal childhood that we say kids in the U S. Live, right? Or we expect normative childhood to be. So I think that is the one thing I try to do in the work is forefront Children's perspectives.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: You want to solve the crisis. Let's ask Children why they do the things that they do

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: instead of making assumptions and then punishing them for not doing the [00:43:00] right thing.

Bruce Anthony: Right. So it seems like what you're saying is money is money by itself is not going to fix the issue because I know, uh, over the last four years, there's been, an investment into the economies. South America by the administration. But it seems like if the governments are already kind of corrupt, then that money doesn't necessarily go to improving the people that are living their lifestyle and that we need to address.

Bruce Anthony: More of a, instead of just an economical standpoint, more of the human and emotional factor that's involved. If I'm not getting that correctly, please correct me. But it kind of seems like money helps, but money isn't the savior, the [00:44:00] absolute savior that it needs to be to, to help with this problem. Mm hmm.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I think, yes, you're right in that the the foreign policy is let's Provide jobs. Let's but so the money is not invested in people. The money is invested in corporations you know, so we're There's like energy plants and they're like European energy plants in Guatemala. And I think it's like less than 10 percent of the energy that's produced by these plants is actually going to the communities and the rest is coming to the U S.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And right. So there's corporations that are moving in and those are being funded and their taxes are being lowered and protections are being put around them. And, and the premise is that maybe people will get jobs there, but what it does is actually. Profit in the pockets of the corporations, right? So I, in which case the governments are not. And I'm not saying these governments are not corrupt, but I would [00:45:00] say they're working exactly as they're meant to be working, right? So, there are several social scientists who talk about, well, why don't, why doesn't the economic investment go to local communities, right? Why there are organizations, there are community foundations on the ground working with people at a very localized level that are creating responses to, like, developing micro economies, Right. Right. And that would be a better economic investment. Or a sort of long arm investment in that a lot of these schools are underfunded or there is no educational infrastructure in rural parts of Central America and Mexico. So why isn't money being put into that? Right?

Bruce Anthony: Okay. How do we, there's a certain, [00:46:00] uh, tone that is used by news organizations when discussing these issues. How can we change that tone? The tone is typically, this shouldn't be our problem. How do we change the tone so that America, every average day Americans who don't have a clue about what's going on as far as the immigration and migration issues, the true issues, that are surrounding the immigration and migration.

Bruce Anthony: How do we reach those people to just be like, look. Let's have some empathy here and talk about this as human beings, as opposed to this isn't my problem.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah. These are some big questions.

Bruce Anthony: I'm throwing them at you, Dr. Steph. I'm throwing them at you.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Like, how do you [00:47:00] solve all of the problems? So, so actually I try at a sort of personalized level of my research expertise. 

Incorporation and Adaptation Challenges
---

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I try to answer that question, um, as it relates to incorporation, right? And what I've done in the book. Is okay. Let me step back. Typically, when we talk about incorporation and policy on immigrants rights and legalization and deserving this of inclusion in U.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: S. Society sort of map onto this incorporation. The existing incorporation theory is that we measure is an individual or a group incorporated or not. That's the question we ask. Right. And remember, I came to this through studying, like working with dreamers, right, being involved in the dreamer movement, being involved in the Deferred Action for the DACA movement, Deferred [00:48:00] Action for Childhood Arrivals, and those policies and programs are designed around the premise that there is a deserving, high achieving, undocumented young person that should be legally protected in the U. S. Right. That's where the imagery of the cap and gown came from, right? Like these are American kids by every other marker except for their legal status. So let's meet them there. Incorporation theory mirrors that we say there are markers of success. Those markers are socioeconomic attainment, educational attainment, occupational mobility, English language, fluency, home ownership, business ownership. These markers. Right. And you asked earlier, what is the success rate of these kids by those markers, zero, right? So I try to redefine incorporation. Incorporation is a process by [00:49:00] which people experience first orientation to a society. What are the features of the society that I'm embedded in? What are the practices?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: What are the beliefs? What is the way of dress? How do I get around this city? Right. And then adaptation to that society adjustment where they learn to navigate the structure of opportunities

Bruce Anthony: In that process. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I have to ask this question, which is if I'm wrong, please correct me what you're describing. Kind of. It sounds like assimilation assimilation to fit in and make sure that you're seeing, but not seeing it. Don't you lose some of your cultural connection by.

Bruce Anthony: Making yourself more American, the stereotype of what an American is. Don't you [00:50:00] lose some of your, your cultural ethnicity. Who you are, how you were raised,

Bruce Anthony: um, like, how do you combat that? Trying to weave in, I'm killing you with these questions. I know I am, 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: No, you know what? You're like, you're reinforcing my book. Part of the argument is that these young people are not becoming American. An incorporation process, again, is loc like, localized. They're adjusting to what's right here. There's no, um, I wouldn't even say I am incorporated into an American mainstream. I'm incorporated to my little pocket over here where I listen to reggaeton and I eat tacos every other day, you know, like that, that's my version of incorporation into my society. So part of the argument of the book is that American society is stratified. This idea that we are all going to reach an end point of Americanness is false, [00:51:00] right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And, and your original question was, I can't even remember it, but I know,

Bruce Anthony: Cause I'm throwing so many at 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: but, but I, the point I was going to make is that, um, Oh, the empathy question. How do we make other people care? What I try to do in the book is say, if the incorporation process is in fact orientation and adaptation, if they're the, the question is not, are you incorporated or not incorporated, but is it adaptation or perdition?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: There are U. S. born individuals. With less pigmentation than me, right? Who are experiencing perdition every single day, right? I in the conclusion of the book I talk about I ask these like a series of questions. Haven't we all felt disoriented in a social setting? And then we become [00:52:00] oriented and then we adjust, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Like I'm coming from UC Merced to UC Berkeley, I'm disoriented as hell.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I am going to go to my faculty orientation on the 22nd of August or whenever, you know, and then eventually I'll adapt to that space. I would have been incorporated. There is a point at which we're all moving through society and experiencing orientations and adaptations.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: There are periods of our lives that we are experiencing deep. Perdicion, loss, right? A loss of our future, a loss of our sense of self. So I try to say, you know, if we stop sizing each other up socioeconomically, what is the value you bring, right? Like, have you achieved the American dream that like low key, but also very high key, none of us are really, there's a very few select people who are able to, to access those opportunities, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So we're real with ourselves that American society is so [00:53:00] stratified. That most of us are on the borderline of not experiencing incorporation. Can we have empathy for these people? 

Bruce Anthony: You la you stuck that landing. You definitely. Wow. That was a hell of an answer. That was a hell of an answer. Um, so there's another, here. there's another aspect of the, this migration. 

Intersectionality in Migration
---

Bruce Anthony: subject because migration often intersects with issues like race, gender and socioeconomic status. How do you address these issues in your research and how critical are these issues to understanding this entire process?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah, so it is that the stratification of U. S. Society by race, ethnicity, gender and [00:54:00] socioeconomic status, religion, sexuality, all of those things. Um, that is again, sort of the starting point, sort of debunking this myth that there is an American society that we're all having an equal opportunity to incorporate into, right? Um, What I spend more time focusing on, because I can only do so much in any given book, what I spend more time focusing on is how those features, those social locations, can sort of create pivot points for unaccompanied youth. Um, talk about. Unaccompanied as a status that we need to pay attention to a stratifier right that if a kid has a parent or a caregiver or not determines in the book I show whether child experiences growing up as a student or a worker. Right. So that's sort of the first little fragmentation. And I'm now I leave the five people that I [00:55:00] interviewed that grew up in the U. S. with an aunt, uncle, grandparent, whoever it was that took them in, supported them, they became a student and they experienced life as a student. 70 other people remained unaccompanied. And from there, I interrogate a little bit more. What is the role of indigenous ethnic identity?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: That Indigenous young people are not accepted as Latino, Latin American by non Indigenous Latinos, right? So they experience discrimination and verbal abuse, emotional abuse at work, at church, in community.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: They're getting off the bus and they're getting beaten up, right? Like

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: things like that. Also gender, how gender stratifies access to, or blocks, Or grants access to certain types of jobs, right? The fact that I was able to [00:56:00] interview, um, I think it was like 60 percent of my, my interviewees were men because I was recruiting in public spaces.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Where there were, there were very many women that were

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: hanging out at the coffee shop or at the donut shop and I could approach even then when I would ask, you know, I'm, I'm running this project, I'm interviews are about an hour. I meet with people after work and they would say, you know, I don't leave the house.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: I go home. It gets dark. I go home. Right. So gender becomes this organizing feature. So it is then something that is really important to the question of. Okay. To what are young people becoming oriented and adapted to

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: and what resources do they have to do to engage in those processes? Right? Um, and then if the if the line between adaptation and perdition is social relationships. [00:57:00] Who has access to relationships,

Bruce Anthony: hmm.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: right? And indigenous young people are very much engaged with one another because they are being discriminated against by non indigenous Latinos. Women have relationships with other women, or when they're involved with men, it's in romantic, in a romantic capacity, and those can become abusive, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So there are these sort of caveats, and I try to do that where I show what is a shared experience. By virtue of being unaccompanied and undocumented. And then where do things start to pivot a little bit by

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: gender? Um, and, um, ethnic identity or language spoken, those sorts of things.

Bruce Anthony: Wow. Okay. So you brought it up earlier, but let's get to it. 

Future Research and Final Thoughts
---

Bruce Anthony: What's next for you, Dr. Steph? What are some of the things that you're working on?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah, actually playing off this last question. I have another book coming out next summer that I'm putting [00:58:00] final touches on, that is just focused on the 36 of the 75 people that I interviewed that were in indigenous and trying to get at the question of how does indigeneity sort of stratify, shape this entire experience.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: And what I find is that it slows the incorporation process. And brings the body, physical appearance into play, because of darker complexion or shorter stature, various features that they associate with being Indigenous, and then the really important role of language, because without language, you can't speak and you can't develop those, right?

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: So Indigenous young people arrive in the U. S., um, primarily speaking their Mayan languages. And they have to learn Spanish to then engage with non Indigenous, and then they have to learn English. Right, so it's like a slower incorporation process that

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: is very much based on, [00:59:00] again, showing how relationships and ties matter. and then I mentioned, also being really interested in what has happened with the kids that have been apprehended at the border and placed with adults and expected to show up in court and do

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: all of those very formal U. S. things. where are they and what's going on? Yeah, so that's the research I'm doing right now.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: That's dope. Is there anything that you would like to say to my audience before I let you go? Any final thoughts? Yeah. 

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah, I would, um, really encourage folks. You know, ever since last February, uh, the New York Times released this expose about unaccompanied child workers, and that has really set the tone on the issue. And, um, one of my critiques of the tone is that it is a bit [01:00:00] ahistorical, the reporting, um, in that it, they characterize child labor, unaccompanied child labor, as a new economy. And if the story of my dad from the seventies teaches us anything is it's not all that new and, uh, kids have been working since the construction of railroads, right? Like since, um, I don't know how far you want to take it, but I would encourage folks to really, if they're interested in the issue of unaccompanied child labor, to dig into the history of it. And I do do that in my book, but there are

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: also other ways to really get engaged because if we want to solve the crisis of unaccompanied child migration and child labor, we have to understand where it started. So, those are my last two cents.

Bruce Anthony: Dr. Steph, I want to thank you for coming on the show and giving us such great information. I know I definitely have, and my audience has learned so much. So I really appreciate you [01:01:00] coming and taking your time and coming on the show.

Dr. Stephanie L. Canizales: Yeah, thanks for having me. This was fun.

Bruce Anthony: It was my pleasure. Once again, I want to thank Dr. Steph for coming on and talking to us about a very, very important issue. I'm going to get to the issue in a minute, but more importantly, I want to promote Her book and her work, you know, where it is, folks, it's down in the detail section of our descriptions for the audio and the video.

Bruce Anthony: Podcast. You can also go on our webpage where she has a guest profile. You can click on a work, go by the book. I'm going to go by the book and read the book, uh, Dr. Steph opened my eyes to stuff. And I think that I'm more well versed than the average American when it comes to Immigration and migration issues in this country.

Bruce Anthony: I think I'm more well versed than, than, than the average American, but I learned a lot through this conversation. And I know I'm going to learn a lot more by reading the book. It's probably going to break my heart. [01:02:00] Learning about the stories of what children. Let me repeat that. Ladies and gentlemen, what Children are going through.

Bruce Anthony: We talk a great deal in this country about how much we want to protect and care for the Children. Time for us to really start backing up what we say is important to us because this is a very, very important issue. Um, I don't, I don't know what to say. I think that was an amazing thing. Amazing conversation with Dr.

Bruce Anthony: Stuff. She's got a fan and a follower and me. Uh, I know that you said you guys listen and watch. She has more fans and more followers because you could tell by the conversation how well versed. And this is the key. A lot of people out here talking about immigration and migration that don't have The knowledge and, uh, expertise to be given the opinions that they have.

Bruce Anthony: She does. [01:03:00] So you, you could tell by the conversation, how well versed she is on the subject and how passionate she is on the subject that resonates through the interview. And I know when I read the book is going to resonate through the word. So go buy the book, go follow her her work. I want to implore people.

Bruce Anthony: As I always do. Empathy. Empathy, empathy, you know, deja pal and everybody knows how I feel about deja pal. I am such a fan of him and there are times where he disappoints me, but he said something that was poignant in one of his conversations that I saw on social media actually was in one of his standups and he said, everything is funny.

Bruce Anthony: Until it happens to you too often because people aren't affected by something or something doesn't happen to them They [01:04:00] lack the ability to even try and understand and guess what? You will never understand what another person is going through because even if you go through the same exact thing People handle reactions to the same thing differently because we're not all the same person, right?

Bruce Anthony: We have different emotions, different reactions to even to the same instance. So just trying to say that you have understanding you can try to, but you won't have true understanding. What we can always have is empathy. What we can always have is the empathy for the fact that these children are coming here for a better life.

Bruce Anthony: That. Is truly what America has always been founded on the opportunity to come here for freedom. Now, we don't always live up to it, but that was the ideal of America time for us to really lean into that time for [01:05:00] us to really back up what we say and time for us to really show empathy for people who are far less fortunate than we are, but just coming here for a shot.

Bruce Anthony: Everybody deserves a shot. Everybody deserves a chance. Once again, thank you to Dr. Stephanie. Thank everybody for listening. Thank everybody for watching. And until next time, as always, I'll holler. 

Bruce Anthony: Ooh, that was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on unsolicited perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don't forget to follow subscribe. Like comment and share our podcast, wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock, we will enjoy it also.

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