293 Harvard Educational Review Vol. 91 No. 3 Fall 2021 Copyright © by the President and Fellows of Harvard College “What’s Going to Happen to Us?” Cultivating Partnerships with Immigrant Families in an Adverse Political Climate ADRIANA VILLAVICENCIO University of California, Irvine CHANDLER PATTON MIRANDA Barnard College JIA-LIN LIU New York University HUA-YU SEBASTIAN CHERNG New York University With the increasing numbers of immigrant and refugee students across the US K–12 system, the xenophobia of the current political climate, and the effects of COVID- 19 on the immigrant community, it is critical to examine schools that serve immi- grant students and their families. Drawing on case studies of two public high schools that exclusively serve immigrant students, authors Adriana Villavicencio, Chandler Patton Miranda, Jia-Lin Liu, and Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng examine how edu- cators frame the current political context and how this frame informs their collec- tive approach to engaging with and supporting families. The study finds that these schools shifted norms of parental engagement by proactively forging relationships with families, cultivating alliances with community partners, and mediating within families around challenges related to work and higher education to benefit the com- munities they serve. In so doing, these school actors have shifted the norms of parental engagement to center the perspectives, voices, and experiences of immigrant families. Keywords: immigrant students, multilingual students, families and parents, secondary schools Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/her/article-pdf/91/3/293/2905432/i1943-5045-91-3-293.pdf by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE user on 26 September 2021