ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses issues of social justice and advocacy when working with children and adolescents. It focuses on two distinct groups of children in the United States: African Americans and Latino/a immigrants. The chapter investigates citizenship, economic status, healthcare, education, and discrimination relative to the identity formation of African American and Latino/a children. It explores some of the resources that families living in low socio-economic areas take advantage of in order to provide basic necessities for their children. The chapter considers children and families that fall through the cracks of governmental assistance and lose the ability to maintain the most basic necessity—shelter. It outlines the transition from one ethnic and cultural identity to another, including the obstacles constructed and maintained by an increasingly xenophobic American society. The chapter also identifies vehicles for maintaining and extending the social double bind.
