Immigrants come to the United States of America for economic opportunities, safer living conditions, etc. When immigrants travel to America, they experience a culture shock and several of them take years before they can feel integrated into society, and sometimes numerous of immigrants never completely adapt. In Everyday Illegal by Joanna Derby some immigrants are illegal and deal with other situations besides being an outsider in a foreign land. There are some negative consequences of parents and/ or children’s undocumented status in families. “At any moment he arrives, he grabs the yellow pages and he says, ‘I am going to call immigration right now, the police.’ I say, ‘call them. What are they going to do to me? Absolutely nothing’. So he doesn’t call. But it is always the same.” (Stuck 59). Isabella is a mother of four children and is constantly abused from the father of her children. She hates the situation but states she still loves him. When one of the parent is undocumented and the other isn’t, they feel dependent on the one with the legal status and feel that they are stuck with them. “Abusers may initially be attracted to unauthorized partners because of this power differential” (stuck 60). The ones with undocumented with status are filled with anxiety not because of deportation but because they are threatened of losing custody of their children. Another negative consequence of parents and/ or children’s undocumented status for relationship status is mixed status families.
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Situations like these occur sometimes parents come first to work and send remittances back home. However, when they finally decided to bring their children, they may have started a new family. Illegality challenges and recreates divisions of power in families. Unauthorized members lose power to legal status people. In mixed status families, different opptournties arise for legal and non-legal family members. Those with illegal status feel inferior to others and feel that they are not able to achieve upward mobility. Some examples of these are, illegals are unable to receive government aid to pay for college or are mistreated in the workplace. One tension between Liberian parents and children is their culture and the Liberian way of parenting. Liberians while living back in their home country grow up with different customs and norms than those of their children. The older generation regards the Liberian culture as superior to Americans. However, since the children are younger they are exposed more too American society and tend to lose their Liberian culture. The younger generation experience “Younger cultural backwardness, views that are learned or reinforced in interactions with their American peers and reports in the media” (Liberians 212). In addition to this younger cultural backwardness, they are embarrassed by their parent because of their inability to speak and write the language. Liberians method of displining their children is different in the United States than it was back home. There is a huge reversal of roles in the Liberian community where parents are highly dependent on their children. The reason for the reversal of roles is that the kids are more exposed to society and understand the language, which in turn diminishes the control of parents over them. However, this problem occurred before with the wars in Liberia, kids had to fend for themselves. When reunited in America kids felt resentment for being abandoned and acted out. When children challenge parents right to punish them the way they see fit parents perceive this as a challenge to their authority. Children have called 911, parents incarnated in the Liberian community. “Parents in New York State are legally allowed to hit a child with an object provided no serious injury results (213). Due to this, Childcare services is a huge anxiety in the community for the fear of being incarcerated. America is coming into the era of second generation immigrant children are having a voice in the country. They make up more than half of all young adult new Yorkers, they outnumber the children of natives and far outnumber the children of white natives, the group many Americans still think of as the mainstream.”(Kasinitz, Mollenkopf and Waters 267). Second generations of immigrant families in terms of education are more likely to have graduated from
Situations like these occur sometimes parents come first to work and send remittances back home. However, when they finally decided to bring their children, they may have started a new family. Illegality challenges and recreates divisions of power in families. Unauthorized members lose power to legal status people. In mixed status families, different opptournties arise for legal and non-legal family members. Those with illegal status feel inferior to others and feel that they are not able to achieve upward mobility. Some examples of these are, illegals are unable to receive government aid to pay for college or are mistreated in the workplace. One tension between Liberian parents and children is their culture and the Liberian way of parenting. Liberians while living back in their home country grow up with different customs and norms than those of their children. The older generation regards the Liberian culture as superior to Americans. However, since the children are younger they are exposed more too American society and tend to lose their Liberian culture. The younger generation experience “Younger cultural backwardness, views that are learned or reinforced in interactions with their American peers and reports in the media” (Liberians 212). In addition to this younger cultural backwardness, they are embarrassed by their parent because of their inability to speak and write the language. Liberians method of displining their children is different in the United States than it was back home. There is a huge reversal of roles in the Liberian community where parents are highly dependent on their children. The reason for the reversal of roles is that the kids are more exposed to society and understand the language, which in turn diminishes the control of parents over them. However, this problem occurred before with the wars in Liberia, kids had to fend for themselves. When reunited in America kids felt resentment for being abandoned and acted out. When children challenge parents right to punish them the way they see fit parents perceive this as a challenge to their authority. Children have called 911, parents incarnated in the Liberian community. “Parents in New York State are legally allowed to hit a child with an object provided no serious injury results (213). Due to this, Childcare services is a huge anxiety in the community for the fear of being incarcerated. America is coming into the era of second generation immigrant children are having a voice in the country. They make up more than half of all young adult new Yorkers, they outnumber the children of natives and far outnumber the children of white natives, the group many Americans still think of as the mainstream.”(Kasinitz, Mollenkopf and Waters 267). Second generations of immigrant families in terms of education are more likely to have graduated from