Abstract

JACOBO-SUAREZ, Mónica. Back home without apostille: Mexican-American students in Mexico. Sinéctica [online]. 2017, n.48. ISSN 2007-7033.

Similar to the number of U.S. deportations to Mexico, the population of transnational students coming from that country has grown in Mexican schools, a natural consequence of hundreds of thousands of migrant families returning to Mexico. The educational reintegration of these bilingual, bicultural and in many cases binational children constitutes a linguistic and pedagogical challenge for the Mexican education system, but also a bureaucratic and administrative defiance. Regardless of their country of origin all children are entitled to education in Mexico, however, the lack of Mexican identity documents has prevented dozens of US transnational students from getting enrolled at school. In 2015, a collaborative effort of civil society, Mexican-based scholars and deported youth achieved important amendments to the education regulatory framework to facilitate school access for transnational students, specifically the elimination of the apostille requirement for K-12 education. This article discusses the scope and limitations of such amendments, in addition to analyzing the activist work behind them. It also provides a demographic characterization of Mexican-american students, 422,000 in 2014, and discusses the challenges they still face to their inclusion in the education system. The study concludes with possible areas of opportunity for the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Keywords : Mexican-American students; apostille; educational inclusion; activism; Mexico.

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