Abstract

VILA-FREYER, Ana. Roots on the Wrong Side of Their Lives? Young Returnees and Deportees from the United States to Guanajuato. Migr. Inter [online]. 2021, vol.12, rmiv1i12295.  Epub Jan 24, 2022. ISSN 2594-0279.  https://doi.org/10.33679/rmi.v1i1.2295.

This article analyzes the experience narrated by young migrant returnees and deportees from the United States, settled in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. Based on their experience, we discuss the explanatory limits of the perspectives of transnationalism and return migration. The cases analyzed allow us to determine that when migrating from North to South, young people undergo an adaptation process supported by family networks that nonetheless constitute a double-edged sword: while facilitating their integration in Mexico, family members also provide their first encounter with discrimination, which they will later experience in other contexts. Although initially, young people forced to return find themselves caged in by these intangible resources, they also overcome them by expanding their identity repertoires and reconstructing their sense of belonging to Mexico. This work seeks to highlight the need to develop a research agenda focused on young migrants, to whom it is difficult to extrapolate existing analytical perspectives.

Keywords : 1. Young migrants; 2. returnees; 3. transnationalism; 4. Guanajuato; 5. Mexico.