02/14/2025
https://events.cornell.edu/event/2025-rabinor-lectures-in-american-studies-stephanie-canizales Thurs, Feb 20 5:00pm
GSH 135 HEC Auditorium
Sin Padres, Ni Papeles: Unaccompanied Migrant Youth Coming of Age in the United States
Stephanie Canizales
University of California, Berkeley
Each year, thousands of youths endure harrowing unaccompa¬nied and undocumented migrations across Central America and Mexico to the United States in pursuit of a better future. Drawing on the firsthand narratives of migrant youth in Los Angeles, Cal¬ifornia, Stephanie L. Canizales shows that while a lucky few do find reprieve, many are met by resource-impoverished relatives who are unable to support them, exploitative jobs that are no match for the high cost of living, and individualistic social norms that render them independent and alone. Sin Padres, Ni Papeles illuminates how unaccompanied teens who grow up as undoc¬umented low-wage workers navigate unthinkable material and emotional hardship, find the agency and hope that is required to survive, and discover what it means to be successful
Biography: Stephanie L. Canizales, PhD, is a researcher, author, and professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is Faculty Director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative. She earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Southern California (2018).
Stephanie specializes in the study of international migration and immigrant integration, with particular interest in the experiences of Latin American-origin immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Over the last decade, she has focused her work on the migration and coming-of-age of unaccompanied children from Central America and Mexico in California and Texas. Throughout her research and writing, Stephanie explores the role of immigration policy in shaping the everyday lives of migrant children and their families, how immigrants and the communities they arrive to transform one another, and immigrants’ articulations of success and well-being within an increasingly unequal US society. Stephanie’s first book, Sin Padres, Ni Papeles, takes on many of these issues.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Stephanie is the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants whose experiences growing up as unaccompanied youth in Los Angeles motivate her commitment to public scholarship. Stephanie’s research has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, among other outlets. She also uses her expertise to inform policy through her work as U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Resident Scholar and a UNICEF USA Research Consultant.
