"The information exists, but it's your job to find it": 1.5-generation immigrants' encounters with public institutions.

Public institutions play a central role in immigrants' access to rights, resources, and opportunities, yet less is known about how immigrants experience encounters across multiple institutional settings during the early years following migration. Based on qualitative interviews with 21 immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel, this study examines how adults who immigrated during adolescence (referred to as the 1.5 generation) retrospectively describe and interpret their early interactions with public institutions. We identify four central themes: absence of institutional guidance, institutional misfit and misrecognition, active mediation by immigrant youth within their families, and localized experiences of support within specific institutional contexts. Participants' accounts point to a recurring gap between the formal availability of institutional resources and participants' ability to identify, access, and use those resources in practice. Information, guidance, mediation, recognition, and cultural sensitivity shaped how they experienced institutional encounters, while adolescents often became central intermediaries between their families and public systems. Positive experiences were commonly associated with particular institutional actors or structured programs that provided support and opportunities. The study highlights the value of examining early institutional encounters from a broader vantage point of adulthood.