Every year, thousands of Latin Americans arrive in the UK. Many of them are teenagers, and for them migration means far more than moving from one place to another. Yet remarkably little is known about how recently arrived young Latin Americans experience life in London. The community has no distinct ethnic category in UK government data, so there are no official figures on how many young Latin Americans are in London’s schools, how long they wait for a place, or how they get on once they arrive. This research was designed to help fill that gap, and to do so by placing young people themselves at the centre of the process.

The research was designed, carried out and analysed by five young peer researchers, all of them young Latin Americans living in London, working alongside the IRMO Advocacy, Research and Campaigns team. They defined the question that guided the project: how do recently arrived young Latin Americans in London experience education, housing and belonging? Their findings are based on eleven in-depth interviews and a survey in Spanish and Portuguese that reached a further 29 young people.

"We had no understanding of how things worked here. And nobody told us anything."