From the Eyes of Latinx Children: Parental Detainment and Deportation in Picture, Middle Grade, and Young Adult Books

In the current sociopolitical environment of the United States, detainment and deportation issues are highly prevalent for many Latinx families and have emotional, social, financial, and/or educational ramifications for affected children. However, discussing legal status challenges in educational settings can create spaces for open conversations and promote empathetic classroom communities. Furthermore, bibliotherapy, the therapeutic use of books to combat feelings of loneliness and guide readers through faced challenges (Gomm et al., 2017), could be one usage of these books. This research critically analyzes parental detainment and deportation portrayals from the perspective of a main Latinx character in 20 PreK-12th grade books to assess their representativeness and their potential to be tools for bibliotherapy. I coded the books using an instrument adapted from Gomm (2012) to examine demographic characterizations, legal status challenges described, and conversations about these challenges. Findings suggest that these books touch upon many prevailing emotional, social, and financial burdens in diversely representative and accurate ways. Anticipated “happy endings” are often contrasted in these stories’ conclusions with many Latinx parent(s)/parental figure(s) still in detainment or having been deported, which parallels reality for many families. However, the presence of educational burdens on Latinx children in these stories is limited which may impact school-based adults' ability to recognize effects on a student’s academics or provide support. Nonetheless, authentic and relatable characters model strength for readers in these stories through activism, resilience, and other admirable traits/actions, which supports their possible use in bibliotherapeutic approaches.