Immigration scholars agree that educational attainment is essential for the success of immigrant youth in U.S. society and functions as a key indicator of how youth will fare in their transition into adulthood. Research warns of downward or stagnant mobility for people with lower levels of educational attainment. Yet much existing research takes for granted that immigrant youth have access to a normative parent-led household, K–12 schools, and community resources. Drawing on four years of ethnographic observations and interviews with undocumented Latinx young adults (ages 18 to 31) who arrived in Los Angeles, California, as unaccompanied youth, I examine the educational meaning making and language learning of Latinx individuals coming of age as workers without parents and legal status. Findings show that Latinx immigrant youth growing up outside of Western-normative parent-led households and K–12 schools and who remain tied to left-behind families across transnational geographies tend to equate education with English language learning. Education—as English language learning—is essential to sobrevivencia, or survival, during their transition to young adulthood as workers and transnational community participants.

移民学者一致认为，受教育程度对于美国青年移民在美国社会的成功至关重要，并且是青年如何过渡到成年的关键指标。研究警告说，受教育程度较低的人的流动性下降或停滞。然而，许多现有研究认为，移民青年可以使用由父母主导的规范家庭，K-12学校和社区资源。根据四年的人种学观察和对无证拉丁裔年轻人（18至31岁）无人陪伴的青年到达加利福尼亚州洛杉矶的采访，我研究了拉丁裔个体成年后没有工作的教育意义和语言学习父母和法律地位。研究结果表明，拉丁裔移民青年在西方规范的父母主导的家庭和K-12学校之外长大，并且仍与跨国地域的落后家庭联系在一起，他们倾向于将教育与英语学习等同起来。教育（作为英语学习）对于sobrevivencia或成年后过渡为工人和跨国社区参与者的成年期。