10:46 a.m.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Association of Mexican American Educators (AMAE) Journal Special Issue
Complicating the Politics of Deservingness:
A Critical Look at Latina/o Undocumented Migrant Youth
Guest Editors: Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales (University of San Francisco), Leisy Abrego
(University of California, Los Angeles) and Kathleen Coll (University of San Francisco)
The separation of marginalized people into categories of deserving/undeserving,
civil/uncivil, and worthy/unworthy is not new; yet it took on a new dimension when, in the
summer of 2014, tens of thousands of Central American refugee children crossing the
U.S.-Mexico border made headlines. Although the migration and settlement of Mexican and
Central American children has a long history, for the first time, the public saw images of
children packed into bare rooms, sleeping on the floor, in overcrowded and unsanitary
conditions. The collective, if short-lived, outrage was later followed simultaneously by
angry protests that blocked buses of children from entering towns and supporters who
welcomed them. Protesters considered them dangerous invaders while supporters invoked
notions of innocent childhood. The media coverage and competing actions opened the space
for conversations about what is now very clearly a “broken” U.S. immigration system tied
to violently consequential foreign policies in the region. Indeed, undocumented youth in
the immigrant rights movement have been mobilizing to put an end to the reprehensible
immigrant detention and deportation system that makes them and their families
vulnerable.
In this special issue, we aim to highlight the complex and important ways in which the
experiences and institutional interactions of refugee children, undocumented youth, and
young immigrants are both distinct and interconnected. Challenging notions of
deservingness that distinguish between “good” versus “bad” immigrants, we solicit
contributions informed by a structural analysis of childhood and youth as it has played
out in the discourse about the lived experiences of immigrant youth and their families.
Our goal is to open the space for a critical immigration scholarship that grapples with
the production of illegality, citizenship as a commodity, and a disruption of the
deserving/undeserving immigrant narrative. We invite pieces that complicate the
contemporary conversation about undocumented young people as well as those that
problematize the myth of a U.S. context that protects childhood and families of color.
The special issue will bring together conversations about “DREAMers,” unaccompanied
migrant children, and grassroots struggles working to transform the current immigration
system and end the institutional violence it engenders. Together, submissions will
acknowledge U.S. intervention, global capitalism, geopolitics, and racism in this
multi-layered migration regime. We are particularly interested in manuscripts that are
interdisciplinary and that engage with the complexity of these dynamics and the nuances in
the broader field. We welcome manuscripts that offer theoretical perspectives; research
findings; innovative methodologies; pedagogical reflections; and implications related to
(but not limited to) the following areas:
● Political subjectivities of “DREAMers” & unDACAmented youth
● The unaccompanied child migrant “crisis”
● Grassroots activism around immigrant rights
● Deportation, detention, and the state
● The politics of a divide between “deserving” children and “undeserving” adult
immigrants
● Undocumented children and the educational system
● Legal services provision and due process for youth
● Local and municipal responses to federal policies
● The relationship between immigration debates and the welfare and carceral systems
Submissions suitable for publication in this special issue include empirical papers,
theoretical/conceptual papers, historical work, essays, book reviews, and poems. It is
important to note that the special issue is interested in the broader Latina/o experience
and not solely focused on the experiences of Mexican Americans (per the title of the
journal).
The selection of manuscripts will be conducted as follows:
1. Manuscripts will be judged on strength and relevance to the theme of the special
issue.
2. Manuscripts should not have been previously published in another journal, nor should
they be under consideration by another journal at the time of submission.
3. Each manuscript will be subjected to a blind review by a panel of reviewers with
expertise in the area treated by the manuscript. Those manuscripts recommended by the
panel of experts will then be considered by the AMAE guest editors and editorial board,
which will make the final selections.
Manuscripts should be submitted as follows:
1. Submit via email both a cover letter and copy of the manuscript in Microsoft Word to:
Dr. Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales (
gnegrongonzales@usfca.edu<mailto:gnegrongonzales@usfca.edu> ).
2. Cover letter should include name, title, short author bio (100 words), and
institutional affiliation; indicate the type of manuscript submitted and the number of
words, including references. Also, please indicate how your manuscript addresses the call
for papers.
3. Manuscripts should be no longer than 7,000 words (including references) and have an
abstract of 200 words or less. Please follow the standard format of the American
Psychological Association (APA). Include within the text all illustrations, charts, and
graphs. Manuscripts may also be submitted in Spanish.
Deadline for submissions is April 15, 2015. Please address questions to Dr. Genevieve
Negrón-Gonzales (gnegrongonzales@usfca.edu<mailto:gnegrongonzales@usfca.edu> ) or
Dr. Patricia Sánchez (patricia.sanchez@utsa.edu<mailto:patricia.sanchez@utsa.edu> ).
Authors will be asked to address revisions to their manuscripts during the summer months
of 2015. This special issue is due to be published in December 2015.
Association of Mexican American Educators (AMAE) Journal
http://amaejournal.utsa.edu
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