Search

From 2013 to 2017, thousands of unaccompanied children (UCs) arrived in Louisiana from Latin America. This research aims to increase understanding of experiences of Latino/a youth who came to New Orleans during that migratory peak. This study offers additional background information on the violent circumstances that forced youth to migrate and insight into youth perceptions of public safety for stakeholders in law and public policy. By triangulating secondary data on crime in Mexico, Central America, and New Orleans with primary survey data ( N = 52), this study found that the majority of surveyed youth (79.2 %) consider New Orleans safer than their country of origin. This finding, among other significant findings related to violence and perceived effectiveness of law enforcement, can be used to advise stakeholders when considering legal options for youth. Moreover, this study generates applied research that contextualizes immigrant youth experiences and their perceptions of safety, offering a methodology for future scholarship.

After Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, newly arrived loncheras, or taco trucks, provided an invaluable and overlooked service, feeding cleanup crews and reconstruction workers. Yet despite the important role these Latinx food vendors continue to fill and their growing popularity among the non-Latinx community, these entrepreneurs face challenges in accessing political and cultural legitimacy. Situating the experiences of lonchera vendors within the larger political economy of U.S. immigration legislation and food truck policy demonstrates how national trends, instead of local realities, are used to shape policies that impact these food vendors. This article uses an ethnographic framework based in New Orleans to argue that the regulation of loncheras maps onto the criminalization of immigrant communities through an emphasis on licensing and documentation. Juxtaposing the case studies of two mobile food vendors, Mateo and Magda—both undocumented—allows for a critical analysis of the ways immigrants navigate bureaucratic systems to make ends meet.