Between 2005 and 2015, about 450,000 children and teenagers moved to Mexico from the United States with their families (Passel, Cohn and Gonzalez-Barrera, 2012). Although the 2007 economic recession in the United States was one of the main reasons for return migration to Mexico (Ramírez and Meza, 2011), other factors, that adults share about their return, have included: deportation of one of the family members, visiting a sick relative, reunification with children left in Mexico, exposing U.S. born children to the Mexican culture, having completed economic goals (build a house or start a business in Mexico), and/or having been victims of violence in the United States (Escobar, Lowell, and Martin, 2013). Nonetheless, when doing studies with transnational children and teenagers, their main reason for return or arrival to Mexico is “to be with my parents and siblings, or close to my family”. Through four different studies in Mexican states, (Nuevo León (2004); Zacatecas (2005); Puebla (2009) and; Jalisco (2010), two types of child migrants were identified: returned migrants to Mexico, and binational migrants, U.S. born, who were in Mexico for the first time. Both types of child migrants reported that being in Mexico was mainly a family strategy to stay together, mostly because they were underage and had never lived away from their parents.
Starting in 2012, I started conducting a longitudinal and multi-site study with both types of child migrants in a fifth Mexican state: Morelos, Mexico. Contrary to the previous four states where studies were carried, and which have had a long history of return migration, until 2000 Morelos had been a migrant sending state and it shifted into a receiving state by the 2010 census. Additionally, when I started conducting interviews in 2012, the Public Basic Education Office in Morelos (Secretaría de Educación Pública) through the office of Binational Migrant Education (Programa Binacional de Educación Migrante, PROBEM) was the only state office in the country that had an accessible and valid database to find transnational children in the schools of every municipality.
Through it, I was able to identify and analyze a third type of migratory trajectory: young migrants returning to the United States; additionally, I have tracked their educational trajectories (Román González, Carrillo Cantú, Hernández-León, 2016). In my research, I draw upon the interdisciplinary field of research Children’s Geographies. This sub-discipline places children as social actors in migration studies and integrates their perspectives and narratives to understand the subjectivities of their migration and mobilities (Dobson, 2009; Kraftl, Horton and Tucker, 2012).
In order to observe, document and analyze these trajectories, I use socio-anthropological tools such as ethnography, in depth interviews and on-site fieldwork. These methodologies have been adapted to work with migrant children and their families in their homes following human protection guidelines in both countries. Through the life-stories methodology I have been integrating the narratives of ten children and teenagers that travel back and forth between the United States and Mexico. These narratives are also triangulated with informal interviews to their parents, grandparents, friends, and other adults.
Although the three migratory trajectories of child migrants start off in a similar way: growing up, living and moving around in the United States and then moving to Mexico, they become more and more complex once young migrants learn to mobilize between both countries, cultures, school systems, communities and families. For instance, having an American citizenship allows some youngsters to continue their migratory and educational trajectories in the country of their choice, while retuned migrants can only migrate within Mexico and therefore, they seek and learn other ways to continue with their educational and migratory trajectories.
This paper focuses on the educational and migratory trajectories of three young migrants that I met in Mexico and that I have followed for five years; they now live in the United States away from their parents and siblings. The three of them, two boys and one girl, fall under the third type of trajectory: U.S-born, who lived in Mexico for a period of time and returned to the United States. I will discuss the obstacles and strategies that these young migrants face and learn when moving between one or both countries. Enrique (17) lived in Mexico for three years before he left at 13 years of age to the United States. In his Mexican school, Enrique was often involved in fights, and he started having drug problems. He visited his parents and youngest sibling in Mexico for the first time last summer. Luis (18) lived in two different states in Mexico, for three years, before he went back to the United States: Morelos (Central Mexico) and Sonora (Northern Mexico). In Mexico he dropped out of school and stayed home for two whole years; he believed that going back to his home country would allow him to continue with his studies and succeed in his future plans. He visits his parents at least twice a year as they live very close to the border in Mexico. Lastly, Flor (14) was living in Mexico for six months only. Her parents were divorced before she moved to Mexico with her mother; her father stayed in the United States. Having a parent in the United States allowed her to go back once she did not feel welcome in the school in Morelos. Until now, she has not been able to go back to Mexico to visit her mother.
A few questions have risen from the last stages of the study: through the children’s perspective, what were the main reasons behind their return? How do they perceive the separation from their parents to “succeed”, if so, in their home country? How is the return migration of American children to the United States different from the return migration of Mexican children to Mexico? Is their perception of American schools and communities the same after living in Mexico? Do American children feel welcomed and reintegrated when they go back to their schools and communities in the United States? What new challenges do they face after they have had an international experience in Mexico? Do they continue to pursue their educational and financial dreams, as they stated while living in Mexico? How are family bonds constructed/obstructed through time and distance? What kinds of strategies are learned/reused/restructured/combined by the children to help them succeed in the different areas of their life?
The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to observe and analyze how children continue to construct and reconstruct the concepts of migration, family, home, schooling and their futures depending on the place they are at, the resources they find, the opportunities or obstacles they encounter, and the use of abilities that they learn through their experience of moving back and forth between two countries.

References
Dobson, M.E. (2009). Unpacking children in migration research. Children’s Geographies. 7, 3, pp.355-360
Escobar, Agustín, Lindsey Lowell and Susan Martin. (2013). Binational dialogue on Mexican migrants in the US and in Mexico. Mexico: CIESAS and Georgetown University.
Kraftl, P., Horton, J., & Tucker, F. (2012). Critical Geographies of Childhood and Youth. Contemporary Policy and Practice. University of Chicago Press.
Passel, J., Cohn, D.V., and Gonzalez-Barrera, A. (2012). Net migration from Mexico falls to zero-and perhaps less. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.
Ramírez, T., and Meza, L. (2011). “Emigración México-Estados Unidos: Balance antes y después de la recesión económica estadounidense.” In La situación demográfica de México, edited by CONAPO, 241 -259. México: CONAPO.
Román González, B., Carrillo Cantú, E., and Hernández-León, R. (2016). Moving to the ‘Homeland’. Children’s Narratives of Migration from the United States to Mexico. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos. 32 (2). Pp. 252-275.