FROM EXCLUSION TO INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION: THE CASE OF LATINO YOUTHS

Urbana. 2006 Jan:39:45-58.

Abstract

In this article, I refer to structural tendencies reflected in the responses of excluded Latinos youths, who range from street children to radical youths (gangs or not) and finally to migrants. The latter, face unusual challenges as a result of being undocumented, forcing them to pursue mobility within a formal system that blocks their way. I review these tendencies through a "positive" lens, focusing mainly on Latino youth who are using different strategies to fight social exclusion. I aim to raise the paradoxical temporality, which indicates that as we learn and analyze more, we tend to move further away from the possibility of transforming pressing problems in society. I raise the question of how to intervene using more knowledge in the alarming situation of one of the most excluded social groups, Latino Youth and also of how to alert and visualize ways of integrating those youth who migrate and become undocumented.

Keywords: Youths; exclusion; international migration; violence.