Framed by the theoretical work of Gloria Anzaldúa, this volume focuses on the cultural and linguistic practices of Mexican-origin youth at the U.S. border to explore how young people engage in acts of "bridging" to develop rich, transnational identities. Using a wealth of empirical data gathered through interviews and observations, and featuring perspectives from multinational and transnational authors, this text highlights how youth resist racialized and raciolinguistic oppression in both formal and informal contexts by purposefully engaging with their heritage culture and language. In doing so, they defy deficit narratives and negotiate identities in the "in-between." As a whole, the volume engages issues of identity, language, and education, and offers a uniquely asset-based perspective on the complexities of transnational youth identity, demonstrating its value in educational and academic spaces in particular. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in the sociology of education, multicultural education, and youth culture more broadly. Those interested in language and identity studies, as well as adolescence, schooling, and bilingualism, will also benefit from this volume.

This book counters the common understanding of study abroad in Latin America as a White and middle-class colonizer practice and re-imagines it to fit the needs of Latinx immigrant/transnational higher education students. The book centers Latinx youth inhabiting familial heritage spaces as a pathway toward a deeper understanding of themselves as racialized and colonized individuals, reframing study abroad for Latinx youth as a way for them to reclaim, negotiate and strengthen their own immigrant/Latino/a/Chicano/a and other identities. The text is undergirded by a theoretical argument based on decolonial methods in education and Critical Race Theory and draws on counter-stories, rich descriptive interviews and participant observations across 26 years of combined experience leading educational trips to Latin America. The authors analyze, reflect and critique the field of study abroad to advocate for the rethinking of recruitment strategies, pedagogical experiences, language practices and community partnerships that include Latino/a, Chicano/a and Latin American immigrant youth and their families from the beginning. They present a new conceptualization of Latinx immigrant students studying abroad as engaging opportunities for reclaiming heritage, culture, histories and language, for exploring a sense of identity and obligation to Latin communities, and for healing from the effects on Whiteness and ethnocentrism in ways online possible outside the continental United States. As such, the book shifts the gaze of the entire field towards new diversities showcasing examples of how educational trips abroad can be re-envisioned to suit the needs of ethnically minoritized students in the United States. This volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, educators, and education officers working across higher education and international education, looking for contemporary, global and forward-thinking decolonial methodologies.

Framed by the theoretical work of Gloria Anzaldua, this volume focuses on the cultural and linguistic practices of Mexican-origin youth at the U.S. border to explore how young people engage in acts of "bridging" to develop rich, transnational identities. Using a wealth of empirical data gathered through interviews and observations, and featuring perspectives from multinational and transnational authors, this text highlights how youth resist racialized and raciolinguistic oppression in both formal and informal contexts by purposefully engaging with their heritage culture and language. In doing so, they defy deficit narratives and negotiate identities in the "in-between." As a whole, the volume engages issues of identity, language, and education, and offers a uniquely asset-based perspective on the complexities of transnational youth identity, demonstrating its value in educational and academic spaces in particular. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in the sociology of education, multicultural education, and youth culture more broadly. Those interested in language and identity studies, as well as adolescence, schooling, and bilingualism, will also benefit from this volume.