Employing narrative inquiry, this paper examines how 30 Mexican and Central American young adults (ages 21 to 34) who immigrated without a parent as teenagers—the unaccompanied 1.25 generation— experienced the subjective feeling of adulthood. Structural realities pushed the unaccompanied 1.25 generation into early adult roles, independence, and social responsibility. In many cases, attainment of “adult” roles, independence, and even social responsibility was not followed by the subjective feeling of adulthood. Instead, the feeling of adulthood emerged in gendered ways, was gradual, and resulted from seeing themselves as competent, mature, and capable of thoughtful decision-making. Moreover, in some cases, traumatic events led some to early identification with adult status or disrupted their identification with adulthood. Their experiences support the idea that becoming an adult is an internal process, and raises questions on how independence and social responsibility are experienced by marginalized youth and incorporated into their sense of adulthood.

本文采用叙事探究，考察了 30 名墨西哥和中美洲年轻人（21 至 34 岁）在青少年时期没有父母移民——无人陪伴的 1.25 代——如何体验成年的主观感受。结构性现实将无人陪伴的 1.25 代推向成人角色、独立性和社会责任感。在许多情况下，“成人”角色、独立甚至社会责任的实现并没有伴随着成年的主观感受。相反，成年的感觉以性别化的方式出现，是渐进的，是由于认为自己有能力、成熟和有能力做出深思熟虑的决策而产生的。此外，在某些情况下，创伤性事件导致一些人过早地认同成人状态或扰乱他们对成年的认同。