ABSTRACT
The manner in which immigrant youth were involved in contests and claims over belonging and identity was poignantly marked out for me by Samara, one of many vibrant 15-and 16-year-old students I met during my initial visits to a public high school in downtown Barcelona-one of the fi eld sites where I was conducting a yearlong ethnographic project on the politics of belonging and immigrant youth identities. Samara, confi dent and quick with her words, was a child of immigration growing up and going to school in one of Barcelona’s bustling immigrant neighborhoods. On the fi rst day that I met her, Samara was in a boisterous classroom with peers from as far away as Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Pakistan, Morocco, and China and as near as the southern regions of Spain. During that visit I took careful note of the fl uidity and multiplicity of youth immigrant identities represented within the classroom-the diversity of dress styles, linguistic registers, hues in skin tones, and performed ethnic identities.
