Joint winner of the Herbert Jacob Book Prize by the Law and Society Association 2017

Amid current legal challenges to end the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program,Footnote ¹ anticipated to reach the US Supreme Court in spring 2018 (Reference Hurley and ChungHurley and Chung 2018), and on-going political controversy surrounding undocumented migrants in America (Reference AbramsAbrams 2016; Reference ChacónChacón 2017), Roberto Gonzales' book, Lives in Limbo, provides a poignant lens through which to consider the individual lives at stake in these discussions. Lives in Limbo traces the daily lives and experiences of 150 undocumented youth in America over a period of 12 years (28–32). The remarkable fieldwork undertaken for this project reveals rich and nuanced narratives about how these individuals understand their belonging in community and society over time, and the ways in which the law actively shapes that understanding. All of the participants in the study came to the United States as children and grew up largely identifying with their American peers. Their sense of belonging was fostered by an educational system and laws that promoted inclusion regardless of immigration status. Yet, as undocumented youth leave the educational system, the legal system operates no longer as a safe haven, but as a coercive and punitive mechanism that excludes and marginalizes these individuals, a kind of “legal violence” that marks migrants with various forms of insecure and temporary statuses (Reference Abrego and LakhaniAbrego and Lakhani 2015).

Turning the concept of “liminal legality” Reference Chacón(Chacón 2015; Reference MenjívarMenjívar 2006) on its head, Gonzales shows how the law is itself a central driving force that shapes the liminality of undocumented youths' lives as they approach adulthood, and how that “legal liminality” (8–10) produces daily lives and experiences marked increasingly by the constraints and uncertainty associated with a lack of legal status. The book unfolds along the life course trajectory of the study's participants, tracking their experiences and perspectives on their belonging through childhood, their teen years, and early adulthood, and in relation to their educational progress and attainment (through primary and secondary school, and in some cases, college or university). The narratives of the study's participants reveal a “transition to illegality” over their life course trajectory (10–13, 212–218). While their childhoods are largely protected from the effects of “illegality” (61–62, 66–72, 75–77), obstacles to fully participating in community life and important life course milestones began to arise for most of the study's participants in their mid and later teen years. Events often taken for granted, such as obtaining a driver's license or securing a part time job, are unreachable goals for individuals without legal status and the documentation to establish it (95–99). As Gonzales recounts from interviews with the participants, these moments require them to begin confronting the limitations of their status, and to begin a “transition” to a life defined increasingly by that (lack of) status (99–109, 212–218).

Lives in Limbo further demonstrates the significance of intersectional discrimination in shaping undocumented youths' daily lives and life course trajectories. The underlying racism that many of the study's participants experienced in childhood and their teen years had a dramatic impact on their life course trajectory as they approached adulthood (84–88). Further, the broader systemic and structural socioeconomic inequalities that often attend immigrant communities and neighborhoods played a role in shaping the educational, social and career opportunities of many of the study's participants (37–43). Even for those youth who were supported by educational and adult mentors, and who went on to post-secondary study, the constraints of “illegality” created insurmountable barriers to long term inclusion in the labor market and created cracks in the foundation of social belonging participants had experienced in childhood (190–199).

As Gonzales discusses, immigration policy and discourse has increasingly focused on dividing “deserving” and “worthy” migrants (smart, ambitious and innocent undocumented youth who should be given status under programs like DACA) from “undeserving criminal” migrants who should be the target of enforcement and deportation measures (3, 26–27). Yet, as the results of his 12-year study establish, these dividing lines are greatly shaped by how the law itself defines and constructs ideas of belonging, and by the related underlying racism that propels forward these dichotomous stereotypes (218–223). Study participants who were deemed as “deserving” very early in their educational experiences tended to receive the support, mentorship and resources necessary to excel in their studies and go on to post-secondary education (the “college-goers”) (44–47, 54–56, 77–82, 109–112). In contrast, those not singled out as exceptional and promising students, and who did not often go on to post-secondary studies (the “early-exiters”) tended to experience neglect and even hostility in their educational environment (51–52, 82–88). This, in turn, and often coupled with other stresses and negative experiences in their daily lives, led some early-exiters to engage in criminal behavior and produced early effects of the stresses, anxiety and uncertainty associated with undocumented status (120–125, 145–148). Lives in Limbo thoughtfully explains the complexity of these experiences and the multi-dimensional nature of the participants' lives as they attempt to navigate their transition to legal liminality and “illegality.”

Yet educational “havens,” as Gonzales shows, have their limits. While college-goers were often able to defer the realities and impact of their legal status on their everyday lives, most participants were eventually confronted by these limitations as their post-secondary education came to a close (190–195). Unable to gain entry into the highly skilled labor market as a result of a lack of legal status, most college-goers ended up in similar life situations as the early-exiter group by the time they reached their mid- to late-20s (205–207). The similar life course outcomes of these two groups, despite their different trajectories earlier in life, highlights the centrality of legal status in shaping individual experience and life course trajectories. For both college-goers and early-exiters, their life course trajectories inevitably reach a point of enduring liminality—being “neither here nor there,” being “betwixt and between” (9), unable to move forward and with nowhere to return back to. Growing up in the United States, these individuals' lives are deeply rooted in a sense of social belonging in the communities in which they were raised in America. Yet, legal status remains the central means by which individuals are recognized as belonging in a society. Lives in Limbo invites readers to critically reflect on, and question, the continuing legitimacy of this disconnection at a time of intense debate, but also opportunity for change, in relation to immigration law and policy in the United States.