Stephanie L. Canizales

Demonstrates that unaccompanied, undocumented youth undergo cumulative physical and mental health disadvantages.

Analyzes the social construction of language proficiency among Indigenous Guatemalan Maya youth in the United States– specifically, undocumented young adults who migrated to Los Angeles, California as unaccompanied minors and who grew up as low-wage workers.

Investigates the social incorporation of unaccompanied, undocumented Latinx youth workers as they come of age in the United States. Reveals based on research with undocumented Central American and Mexican young adults who grew up as unaccompanied minors in Los Angeles, California, the data that the pressures of financial obligations to families in the sending country and their own sobrevivencia (survival) in the United States, along with limited financial and social resource and mobility, produce a social incorporation trajectory shaped by the primacy of work.

Examines the educational meaning-making and language learning of Latinx individuals coming of age as workers without parents and legal status. Shows that Latinx immigrant youth growing up outside of Western-normative parent-led households and K–12 schools and who remain tied to left-behind families across transnational geographies tend to equate education with English language learning.

Theorizes the concept of ethnoracial capitalism, which occurs within racialized groups when group members commodify ethnicity through the sale of culturally-specific goods or when institutions and services are imbued with ethnicity and assumed to form the basis of profitable financial exchanges.

Examines the roots, causes, and effects of racism experienced by Latinos in the Trump era. Argues that Trump and his administration were not the origin of Latinos' experiences of racism, but his rise to power was, in part, derived from Latino racialization.

Reports on 24 months of observations at two Los Angeles Catholic churches and interviews with undocumented and unaccompanied, indigenous migrant youth churchgoers to understand how churches influence migrant youths’ incorporation. Finds that church membership can delay undocumented and unaccompanied youths’ incorporation by reproducing inequality as they offer individualized solutions, like tithing and service, to structural disadvantages such as work exploitation, poverty, and addictions.

Examines how race, class, and gender intersect to shape professional Latinos’ entrepreneurial incorporation, as observed by the conditions that prompt professional Latinos to start a business, including access to capital and experiences with discrimination.

Shows that while scholars predict Americanization and individualism threatens immigrant incorporation, research with unaccompanied Guatemalan Maya young adult participants of a Los Angeles support group indicate that Americanization and the adoption of American individualism equips youth growing up without parents or supportive social institutions with the rhetoric and behaviors of self-responsibility necessary for emotional, psychological and financial stability. Finds social incorporation increases as youth begin to see themselves as participants in a local community.