Reminds me of an article in the American Sociology Review titled "Learning to be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood" (
http://www.asanet.org/images/journal...ASRFeature.pdf). I am currently working with Professor Roberto Gonzalez on a project along with members of IYJL (Immigrant Youth Justice League) in Chicago.
What he observes through that article is the process which many youth go through as they leave high school and head into college or maybe not into college but just the workforce in general, outside of the protection that they were able to get while in high school. Since at that time they are not denied education, they are not asked for pieces of documentation identifying their status (at least at the time they were not, Alabama changed that for a couple of months), resulting in being able to have an easier time surviving. But once you leave that context and head to the next stage of life, there is the appearance of a series of obstacles.
I am still in the process of reading the article and have not finished yet, mostly because it leaves me in a pensive state as I go back through my own experiences growing up.
I also survived through high school, and was immensely successful considering that I was able to get internships, take a couple duel enrollment classes, take AP and honors classes and attend one of the best high schools in the country. The future looked bright, there was interest being displayed by some very prominent universities after I had somehow managed to land an internship in one of the best nanotechnology labs in the country, yet, my status became an obstacle and I settled for the cheapest school.
I thought that I could navigate through the school without a problem just as I did through high school, but there was one difference, there was the appearance of additional obstacles, the cost of education, the lack of assistance, the lack of knowing the university's response and the lack of finding people that would be able to answer even basic questions considering my circumstances, needing to drive, unable to get jobs or internships. All of that hunted me from 2007 until 2011.
By the second year my mental status was not the best, I was angry at everything, but internalized all those emotions, it would occasionally come out in bursts but I was able to hide it from people, the only victims would be the dishes in the kitchen, the pillow, and the books.
By the time I figured out what was going on, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and severe depression. The help I found in the counseling center was limited, they did not know how to deal with me, and their solution was to hear me out, which I do not think was a great idea, because allowing thoughts to come out without having any solution is not going to achieve anything other than allow me to realize the futility of my circumstances. The best thing that occurred was the end of the free sessions that the school offers (they cap it at 16 free hour long sessions).
Ending those sessions and not thinking about the futility of my situation allowed me to concentrate in school once more and my grades to go back up. Eventually I would take a philosophy class that would tackle issues in a manner that I found interesting, it demonstrated what seemed like a history dotted with movements that were comparable to ours all throughout latin america, the question on citizenship by those born from foreign parents had surfaced and been debated by De Las Casas a long time ago.
It allowed me gain the confidence to seek help outside of the campus from a movement that was gaining some traction, and just about a year ago, I told my story to a room of 40 individuals in the same situation for the first time, and started what has now formed into two new organizations on my campus, meetings with dozens of people every week and working on projects with the intention of finding solutions that will benefit more people in this situation. I have helped organize training sessions for mental health experts, know your rights workshops for parents, students and counselors, shout it out for the community, been in discussion in different culture groups to correlate in the similarity of our circumstances, and brought outside problems to be discussed in a place where immigration was never really touched.
At the lowest point my mental health started manifesting itself in very physical manners, from nausea, to headaches, considerable lethargy, inability to sleep at night, the occasional heart pounding anxiety attack (at least, not I think that is what I faced, they were sudden bursts of energy I could not explain what to do with and left me restless with my heart pounding very fast). Along with the inability to concentrate, the inability to block certain thoughts out, the inability to find enjoyment in what I used to enjoy before, having a hard time remembering things. It all combined to leave me in a very bad social situation, going from a person that could go to a person and befriend them quickly, to someone that was more isolated. Just in the last couple of months I have been able to find a lot more opportunities than I did the first 4 years of college, because if you don't ask for help, no one is going to know that you need help, that is what I have learned through this whole process.