Manufacturing Hope and Despair

The School and Kin Support Networks of U.S.-Mexican Youth

Relying on a wealth of ethnographic and statistical data, this groundbreaking volume documents the many constraints and social forces that prevent Mexican-origin adolescents from constructing the kinds of networks that provide access to important forms of social support. Special attention is paid to those forms of support privileged youth normally receive and working-class youth do not, such as expert guidance regarding college opportunities. The author also reveals how some working-class ethnic minority youth become the exception, weaving social webs that promote success in school as well as empowering forms of resiliency. In both cases, the role of social networks in shaping young people’s chances is illuminated.

“In this badly needed alternative to the individualism that pervades most debates about American education, Stanton-Salazar explores how Latino teenagers’ lives are embedded within social networks from home, community, and school. This grand work shows how school programs can confound or can draw from the strengths of such networks to build better lives for all.”
—Bruce J. Biddle, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Sociology, University of Missouri–Columbia

“A beautifully written and inspiring book that announces a new generation of Mexican/Latino scholars. . . . This is a book which tells the tale about Mexican/Latino adolescents but, in reality, it is a book about how working-class adolescent life is socially constructed, defined, and elaborated in the United States. An eloquent rendering, indeed.”
—Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez, Presidential Chair in Anthropology, University of California, Riverside

“Using creative theorizing and rigorous methodology, Manufacturing Hope and Despair illuminates brilliantly the supposed mystery of persistent race/class inequities in American society.”
—Walter R. Allen, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles