Doing Good and Doing Damage: Educators’ Impact on Undocumented Latinx Students’ Lives

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore educators' particularly poignant role in impacting undocumented students' lives. I draw from the perspectives of undocumented students to examine how educators impact undocumented Latinx lives for better or for worse. I focus on undocumented Latinx students' perceptions of educators' everyday interactions with them and use Valenzuela's (Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999) notions of educación and authentic caring to analyze how students make meaning of them. I stress the significance of interactions that do good and others that do damage and suggest that educators can powerfully influence the lives of undocumented youth through small, even momentary interactions.