Young Deportees from the United States Search for a Path in Mexico Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
go to original September 16, 2013

Nancy Landa, left, listens as her father Javier Landa talks about how proud she's made him, and how he wishes he could help his family more. Also listening are her brother William and mother, Lourdes. All four were deported from California in 2009. (David Maung/U-T San Diego)

TIJUANA — Deported to Tijuana after two decades in California, Nancy Landa found an apartment, landed a job at a maquiladora and earned a promotion to a management position. But the graduate from California State University Northridge wanted more: the chance to pursue her dream of a public-service career.

Landa is part of a generation of young deportees struggling to build identities and carve out paths in a country they left as children, where they have few memories and tenuous ties. The journey for many has meant learning to live by new rules, navigate unfamiliar bureaucracies and overcome negative sterotypes.

“People are seeing us as a problem, we’re stigmatized, we’re the deportees,” said Landa, who was brought to the United States at 9 and deported at 29. “How can we be an asset for Mexico?”

About 500,000 Mexicans between the ages of 18 and 35 living in the United States without authorization returned to Mexico between 2005 and 2010, said Jill Anderson, a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for North American Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Read the rest at U-T San Diego

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