Laboring in the Shadows & Now We Are Here | Gutman Library Hybrid Book Talk
Why It Matters
Their findings spotlight overlooked labor and learning infrastructures that influence educational equity, offering evidence and policy‑relevant insights for educators, funders and policymakers aiming to support immigrant families and sustain justice‑oriented youth work.
Summary
At a Gutman Library hybrid book talk, anthropologist Gabrielle Oliveira and sociologist Bianca Baldridge discussed their complementary new books—Oliveira’s Now We Are Here, an award‑winning study of family migration and immigrant children’s educational trajectories, and Baldridge’s Laboring in the Shadows, which documents the roles and precarity of Black youth workers in community‑based educational spaces. Both scholars traced how race, transnational migration, institutional policy and labor dynamics shape access to learning and the everyday practices of educators, families and students across borders and community sites. They emphasized ethnographic evidence and practice‑informed interventions, noting collaborations with schools, dual‑language programs and public projects that amplify immigrant and minoritized youth voices. The conversation highlighted structural constraints—market reforms, racialized narratives and unstable labor conditions—that shape what learning looks like outside traditional classrooms.
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