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Unfamiliar with both the English language and the cultural norms of their new host country, immigrant teenagers in the United States face unique challenges as they adapt to the simultaneous physical and emotional changes associated with adolescence. These intersections impose specific constraints upon their agency but also provide them with a distinctive vantage point, setting their experiences apart from those of both younger and older immigrants. 

Drawing on two years of ethnographic data with adolescent arrivals, who began learning in educational settings during highly contested political times, Liliana V Rodriguez theorizes the overlapping dynamics of their experiences. Through their voices and narratives, Rodriguez shows how these youth create vibrant spaces of belonging through joy and humor as they craft their identities, find reasons to laugh, and build communities on their own terms. Adolescent Arrivals reveals that for immigrant teenagers, survival is not just passive adaptation but an active and creative process of world-making.