How public benefits make citizens in Latino mixed-status families: self-efficacy, institutional engagement, and concerted citizenship cultivation

Abstract

Experiences with public benefits can shape recipients’ feelings (belonging) and enactment of citizenship (e.g., political, civic, or economic behaviors). However, we know less about how undocumented and lawful permanent resident (LPR) immigrants fit within this paradigm. This study, based on in-depth interviews with forty working-poor undocumented and LPR Latina immigrant mothers, reveals striking ways in which mothers described the meanings they attached to the benefits received and the social processes their experiences with benefit programs informed. Many mothers described an increased sense of self-efficacy as mothers and as immigrants, expanded notions of government responsiveness, and shifts in how they understood the citizenship (broadly conceived) of their children based on their experiences with benefits. This was even reported among mothers who used programs often seen as stigmatizing or who had challenges arise in petitioning for benefits. Moreover, mothers conveyed these meanings spurring legal, economic, and civic behavioral adaptations in their lives, deepening their engagement as citizens. They also described how the meanings derived from benefits use produced changes in their parenting practices, describing structuring their children’s time and engagement with institutions, as well as fostering reasoning skills and attitudes meant to benefit their children’s long-term integration. I term such practices concerted citizenship cultivation. For children with legal citizenship, concerted citizenship cultivation focused on developing comfort and entitlement within US institutions, socializing interactions with authority figures, and promoting expanded engagement in society. For children who lacked legal citizenship, concerted citizenship cultivation focused on developing positive identity and deepening engagement within protective institutions.