Deserving Immigrants and Good Advocate Mothers: Immigrant Mothers’ Negotiations of Special Education Systems for Children with Disabilities

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on observational data and 30 in-depth interviews, we examine how immigrant mothers of color from diverse class, ethnic, and racial backgrounds negotiate public special education services for their children with severe intellectual disabilities. Special education systems in the United States emphasize parental involvement and oversight in the process of developing appropriate service packages for children. The intersection of these expectations with ideologies of intensive mothering generate an idealized vision of the mothers of children with disabilities as engaging in vigorous, selfless, and skillful advocacy in special education systems. The “Good Advocate Mother” becomes an ideational foil for “immigrant deservingness” by offering a yardstick of expectations against which to evaluate the commitment and merit of immigrant mothers raising children with disabilities. The Good Advocate Mother is a source of empowerment for immigrant mothers. The narrative legitimates their quest to obtain the best services for their children in the face of political currents that call immigrant entitlements to public services into question. The Good Advocate Mother is a constant source of challenge for immigrant mothers for whom the pressures of advocating well for their children intersect with those of establishing themselves as deserving immigrants.