Chapter 3: Sowing The Semillas of Critical Multicultural Citizenship for Latinx Undocumented Youth Inside and Outside of School

Every day across the United States, undocumented Latinx youth are systematically disenfranchised, marginalized, and deprived of basic human rights. They are branded as “aliens” who are undeserving of humane treatment and rights of citizenship. As a result, undocumented Latinx youth are relegated to the margins of U.S. society. hooks (2000) writes about “choosing the margins as a space of radical openness” (p. 203). While undocumented youth do not choose to live in the margins of U.S. society, they often discover their power in its fragmented spaces. The undocumented Latinx participants in our study epitomize a Mexican proverb, “Quisieron enterrarnos, pero se les olvido que somos semillas.” The proverb is translated as, “They tried to bury us, but they forgot we are seeds.” The undocumented Latinx students highlighted in this study demonstrate their resilience even as they feel buried under structural inequalities in the U.S. schooling system and society. Their testimonios (testimonies) illustrates how the seeds for critical multicultural citizenship can be sowed in spaces inside and outside of school.