Kevin Escudero
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479803194
- eISBN:
- 9781479877812
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479803194.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter focuses on the case of Asian undocumented youth to explain immigrant youth activists’ efforts to unearth the silenced history of Asian undocumented immigration and to place this history ...
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This chapter focuses on the case of Asian undocumented youth to explain immigrant youth activists’ efforts to unearth the silenced history of Asian undocumented immigration and to place this history in conversation with current immigration debates. As part of these efforts, activists use storytelling strategies to counteract stereotypes of Asian immigrants as solely high-skilled workers and individuals who have come to the United States to attend college, noting that Asians were and continue to be affected by the issue of undocumented immigration. Asian undocumented activists also strategically draw upon their intersectional identities as both Asian and undocumented individuals in Latinx organizing spaces to work alongside members of a group that is largely invoked in the national imaginary in discussions of undocumented immigration. As part of activists’ efforts to push beyond discussions solely of the need for increased representation of Asian and other non-Latinx undocumented activists, this chapter emphasizes the extensive efforts that Asian and Latinx undocumented organizers have undertaken to employ a broad, multiracial approach to framing undocumented identity.Less
This chapter focuses on the case of Asian undocumented youth to explain immigrant youth activists’ efforts to unearth the silenced history of Asian undocumented immigration and to place this history in conversation with current immigration debates. As part of these efforts, activists use storytelling strategies to counteract stereotypes of Asian immigrants as solely high-skilled workers and individuals who have come to the United States to attend college, noting that Asians were and continue to be affected by the issue of undocumented immigration. Asian undocumented activists also strategically draw upon their intersectional identities as both Asian and undocumented individuals in Latinx organizing spaces to work alongside members of a group that is largely invoked in the national imaginary in discussions of undocumented immigration. As part of activists’ efforts to push beyond discussions solely of the need for increased representation of Asian and other non-Latinx undocumented activists, this chapter emphasizes the extensive efforts that Asian and Latinx undocumented organizers have undertaken to employ a broad, multiracial approach to framing undocumented identity.
Kevin Escudero
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479803194
- eISBN:
- 9781479877812
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479803194.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Movements and Social Change
Undocumented immigrants in the United States who take part in social movement activism do so at great risk: the threat of deportation. Despite this risk, undocumented immigrant youth have been at the ...
More
Undocumented immigrants in the United States who take part in social movement activism do so at great risk: the threat of deportation. Despite this risk, undocumented immigrant youth have been at the forefront of the national movement for immigrant rights. In their activism these youth have leveraged their identities as immigrants but also as queer individuals, people of color, and women. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Asian undocumented, undocumented and queer (undocuqueer), and formerly undocumented activists, Organizing While Undocumented examines these activists’ cultivation of and strategic use of an intersectional movement identity. Through the development of the Identity Mobilization Model, the book highlights three critical strategies that undocumented immigrant youth have utilized when deploying an intersectional movement identity. Ultimately, this book argues that undocumented immigrant youth have challenged the notion that their immigration status wholly defines their lived experiences and, in the process, emphasized the importance of their multiple social identities. This emphasis has in turn allowed undocumented activists to connect their struggle to a broader set of social justice struggles taking place in the world today.Less
Undocumented immigrants in the United States who take part in social movement activism do so at great risk: the threat of deportation. Despite this risk, undocumented immigrant youth have been at the forefront of the national movement for immigrant rights. In their activism these youth have leveraged their identities as immigrants but also as queer individuals, people of color, and women. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with Asian undocumented, undocumented and queer (undocuqueer), and formerly undocumented activists, Organizing While Undocumented examines these activists’ cultivation of and strategic use of an intersectional movement identity. Through the development of the Identity Mobilization Model, the book highlights three critical strategies that undocumented immigrant youth have utilized when deploying an intersectional movement identity. Ultimately, this book argues that undocumented immigrant youth have challenged the notion that their immigration status wholly defines their lived experiences and, in the process, emphasized the importance of their multiple social identities. This emphasis has in turn allowed undocumented activists to connect their struggle to a broader set of social justice struggles taking place in the world today.
