Undocumented Americans: Answers to Your Questions about Undocumented Youth in America

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Undocumented Youth

Gaining a Voice: Storytelling and Undocumented Youth Activism in Chicago*

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Swerts
Keyword(s):  
Community Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Youth Activism ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
New Members ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Context Type ◽  
The Social

In recent years, undocumented youth have come out of the shadows to claim their rights in the United States. By sharing their stories, these youth gained a voice in the public debate. This article integrates insights from the literature on narratives and emotions to study how story-telling is employed within the undocumented youth movement in Chicago. I argue that undocumented youth strategically use storytelling for diverging purposes depending on the context, type of interaction, and audience involved. Based on ethnographic research, I show that storytelling allows them to incorporate new members, mobilize constituencies, and legitimize grievances. In each of these contexts, emotions play a key role in structuring the social transaction between storyteller and audience. Storytelling is thus a community-building, mobilizing, and claims-making practice in social movements. At a broader level, this case study demonstrates the power of storytelling as a political tool for marginalized populations.

Counterdocuments

2018 ◽  
pp. 172-191
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Schreiber
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Mutual Support ◽  
Digital Videos ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Collective Resistance ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
Share Information

In “Counterdocuments: Undocumented Youth Activists, Documentary Media, and the Politics of Visibility,” Rebecca M. Schreiber analyzes the role that digital videos play in building an oppositional community of undocumented youth in the contemporary moment. Specifically, Schreiber explores the circulation of digital videos—“counterdocuments”—by activists who recorded their personal stories and political actions through social media and other online platforms. In this way, young migrants challenged Obama administration policies that aimed to conceal or minimize publicity around the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants and created an open, public space in which activists could share information and forge lines of mutual support and collective resistance.

Make Room in the Circle

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-120
Author(s):  
Wesley C. Hogan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Immigrant Youth ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Dream Act ◽  
Real Problem ◽  
Youth Justice ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Driver's License

During the 1990s and into the 2000s, three basic barriers prevented undocumented youth from achieving major milestones of independence—acquiring a driver’s license, submitting college applications, and working legally. The circumstances repeated again and again in the accounts of undocumented youth. Elioenai Santos recalled, “Living like that is a real problem. It’s a real blow to your self-esteem, because you always feel like you are somehow less. It’s awful to always feel like you’re inferior. You see your friends driving around, traveling to other countries, while I don’t have money to go to school.” Nor could they keep their families together, as everyone felt constantly threatened by separation. The result since the early 2000s has been a growing, powerful movement among undocumented youth to redefine “who belongs” as a citizen in the United States. This chapter explores how the Immigrant Youth Justice League, Freedom University, Cristina Jimenez and United We Dream, and other undocumented and undocuqueer youth immigrant activists have fought for DACA and the DREAM Act and against deportation and the border wall. They have fundamentally challenged all US citizens to reimagine who belongs within the circle of belonging.

Students on the Rise

2015 ◽  
pp. 195-213
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Bishop
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Urban Youth ◽  
Literacy Learning ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Immigrant Rights ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Ethical Learning

This chapter discusses the recent findings of the Drop Knowledge Project in New York City (DKPNYC). The DKPNYC is a cultural studies research project designed to excavate the discourses of urban youth activism and organizing in relation to critical literacy learning. In this chapter, the authors look at the work of the DKPNYC youth activists around issues related to immigrant rights and educational justice in out-of-school spaces. Amongst the interconnected issues surrounding this work, the youth participants in the DKPNYC all organize around issues related to the struggle of undocumented youth to access quality education in the United States. Data collected from the study is decidedly cross-cultural, with participants articulating visions of themselves and their future in relation to their cultural heritage and their inter-subjective ethical learning. Implications from the study provide insight to educators, researchers, and community-based organizations about educating immigrant youth and others on pressing issues around immigrant learning.

Sticking to the Script

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujatha Fernandes
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Undocumented Students ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Dream Act ◽  
Immigration Reform ◽  
Immigrant Rights ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Legislative Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
American Society

This chapter looks at how storytelling was used by mainstream immigrant rights groups to produce an aspiring class of upwardly mobile and self-reliant undocumented youth while defusing broader migrant rights activism. In the campaign for legalization through a DREAM Act, the undocumented students known as Dreamers told their stories to the legislature and the media. The students were given scripts to follow that emphasized their achievements, assimilation into American society, and rejection of their home countries. In the lead-up to the 2008 national election and the subsequent push for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), groups of young people were mobilized in mass storytelling trainings across the country to support the electoral and legislative agenda of mainstream organizations. Eventually, many young people rebelled against this orchestration and sought to take control over their own representations. Some even began to move away from storytelling as a mode of political engagement altogether.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document