Beyond infantilization and adultification: The binary representations of child migrants in the United States and how they harm young migrants

Abstract

The arrival of migrant children at the US–Mexico border has prompted vigorous debates about how to handle their admission and manage their access to resources. Portrayals of child migrants often draw on dominant conventional notions of childhood, creating binary representations that simultaneously infantilize and adultify them. This binary representation either strips children of their agency or criminalizes their actions and denies them protection. This paper exposes the inadequacies of the infantilization and adultification binary to represent and understand the experiences of child migrants, particularly youth who immigrate as teenagers, through a transdisciplinary approach. Integrating original historical analysis via archival research with contemporary social scientific analysis from qualitative research, this paper examines the longstanding binary representations of migrant children and their harmful impacts. The historical analysis shows that infantilization and adultification have defined the US response to child migrants since the mid-1960s. Making connections to the present, through the stories of two unaccompanied teenage arrivals, we show how the binary is experienced and how Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) reflects and reinforces the binary. The paper also highlights how young people, who do not fit neatly into the binary, come to subjectively feel adult, elucidating the need for an alternative narrative that embraces child migrants' agency and advocates for support and protection for all youth.