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Harriett Romo, Kids in the Middle: How Children of Immigrants Negotiate Community Interactions for Their Families By Vikki S. Katz Rutgers University Press. 2014. 192 pages. $26.95 paper, $80 cloth, Social Forces, Volume 94, Issue 4, June 2016, Page e115, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sou128
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Kids in the Middle was published as part of the Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies, dedicated to increasing understanding of children and childhood, promoting the voices and experiences of children, and formulating policies that affect children's everyday lives and futures. The author herself emigrated from South Africa with her family and experienced the everyday strains of adapting to a new country. She acknowledges that her family experiences differed from those of the Spanish-dominant Latino families she studies, who are not as fortunately situated with regard to being native English speakers and having advanced degrees. One of the goals of the book is to bring into focus children's contributions as brokers between their immigrant parents and US institutions. The author examines “how children develop and hone both individual and collective strategies for assisting their families across multiple physical locations” (3). As such, this book adds to the increasing number of articles and books that focus on children as immigrants, their experiences in immigrant families, and their agency within their families and receiving communities.