“Migrant childhood. Today's challenges and needs”

In the midst of health contingencies and having academic and cultural face-to-face activities suspended in higher education institutions worldwide, the headquarters of UNAM at Boston launched the digital project: “Tertulias at UNAM-Boston” The presence of children in international migrations is not something new. Nevertheless, it has been relegated to invisibility due to the adult centric perspective from which the migratory phenomenon has been dealt with, both from governments and national and international organizations, as well as, scientific research from different fields of knowledge.

Turned into an emerging actor in migration processes on a global scale and from its active agency capacity, this childhood blurs the limits of many pre-established categories -as the ones of nationality, identity and the sense of belonging, to mention a few- making clear the need to rethink them towards a sense of diversity openness and other possible ways of being.

Some of the spheres in which the presence of migrant boys and girls provoque tensions and push towards a reconfiguration of these categories and of the established systems, knowledge and practices, are those of education and health. Within the first one, acquire particular interest elements such as main language(s) and heritage language(s), the differences between models and pedagogic methodologies with which these children enter and emerge from the educational systems of their countries of origin and destiny, and the creation of hybrid identities departing from developing in different cultural universes. Within the health sector, the conditions in which their own mobility experience is developed, family separation, re-socialization challenges; social, cultural and linguistic distance between the countries of origin and destiny, and the obstacles found in school and social insertion processes lead these children to face difficult situations that end up affecting their health and their mental and emotional well-being.

In the tertulia “Migrant childhood. Today's challenges and needs”, different experts address these and other challenges that Mexican children and children from Mexican origin face within Mexico - United States mobility.