Professor Anne Roschelle appeared on the April 29 edition of WAMC’s nationally-syndicated program, “The Academic Minute,” to discuss the humanitarian crisis involving unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Roschelle, who is also chair of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, draws on research she has conducted in Guatemala and with migrant families and minors in the Hudson Valley to make the case that social policy in the United States can and should do more to support migrant children’s physical and mental well-being.
“Extreme poverty, malnutrition, sexual violence, gang violence and family reunification are the primary reasons these children are fleeing their homes,” Roschelle says in the broadcast. “Many of these kids are revictimized or trafficked on their journey from Central America to the United States.”
“Given the enormous trauma suffered by these kids, the lack of services is devastating. Migrant children need long-term mental health care to alleviate their trauma, and medical care for malnutrition, untreated illness and physical harm. The first step toward meaningful social policy is to provide bilingual medical and mental health care for these unaccompanied minors.”
Roschelle is the author of No More Kin: Exploring Race, Class, and Gender in Family Networks (Sage, 1997), a recipient of Choice Magazines 1997 Outstanding Academic Book Award, and a forthcoming book on homeless families in San Francisco. She serves as a commissioner on the Ulster County Human Rights Commission.
About “The Academic Minute”
“The Academic Minute” is an educationally focused radio segment produced by WAMC in Albany, N.Y., a National Public Radio member station. The show features an array of faculty from colleges and universities across the country discussing the unique, high-impact aspects of their research. The program airs every weekday and is run multiple times during the day on about 50 different member stations across the National Public Radio spectrum. For more information, visit http://academicminute.org/.
