scholarly journals The ‘Undocuqueer’ movement and DREAMers: Activist online space and the affective queer body

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-305
Author(s):  
Christopher Pullen ◽  
Ieuan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Undocumented Migrant ◽  
Queer Youth ◽  
Online Technology ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Migrant Youth ◽  
Theoretical Insight ◽  
Insight Into

This article explores the advent of the ‘Undocuqueer’ movement, an activist social network that represents the life chances of undocumented queer youth migrants in the United States, arguing for acceptance, equality and integration, with a particular focus on needs for education. Considering the promise of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (a possible legislative act that would offer education to undocumented migrant youth), this article offers an historical and cultural foundation as to the emergence of the Undocuqueer movement, and also theoretical insight into the use of online technology to produce transmedia testimonials. Relating the significance of the affective queer body, this article argues that the online work of the Undocuqueer movement offers a model of affective queer activism, framing the performative potential of undocumented queer youth and their attempts to attain civil rights.

Dreaming across Borders

2019 ◽  
pp. 159-170
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Boehm
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Border Crossings ◽  
Undocumented Migrant ◽  
Migrant Youth ◽  
Mexican Government ◽  
National Membership

This chapter chronicles the in-between position of Dreamers, or undocumented migrant youth who were born outside of the United States, but have lived in the United States for many years and consider it home. Although these youth are undeniably transnational, they may find themselves trapped in the United States, unable to leave or safely return to the United States. This landscape changed to some extent with DACA, which created the possibility for young people to travel outside of the United States and return through a process called Advance Parole. However, even if approved, leaving the United States through Advance Parole could result in young people being denied reentry by U.S. officials and thus permanently excluded from the country. Based on ethnographic research with a group of DACAmented migrants who were invited by the Mexican government to visit “their homeland,” this chapter considers border crossings in a time of increasingly blocked movement for the majority of migrant youth. Although all youth were granted permission to travel to Mexico through Advance Parole, their returns—first to Mexico and then to the United States—demonstrate how DACA created a curious status of being both in certain legal categories, but persistently without access to formal national membership. Their liminal position underscores the insecurities of migrant youth more generally.

Reflections

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-180
Author(s):  
Abel Núñez ◽  
Rachel Gittinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Migrant Youth ◽  
Youth Advocacy ◽  
Political Exclusion

The authors outline how, as undocumented immigrants face danger throughout their journeys and challenges settling in U.S. communities, local civil society actors at each stage must ensure that their human and civil rights are respected. Policies that only address the migratory flow into the United States will not resolve issues of violence, poverty, and political exclusion in the countries of origin that force people to flee. Despite their lack of legal status in the United States, immigrant youth have a crucial role to play in ensuring a secure future—for others like them but also for U.S. civil society more broadly. The authors illustrate the ways that migrant youth have been taking the lead on articulating their visions for a better world, and discuss how—informed by youth advocacy—local communities and state governments can build effective networks, implement protective policies, and provide needed services.

Reflections

2019 ◽  
pp. 181-188
Author(s):  
Margarita Salas-Crespo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High School ◽  
Young People ◽  
Language Barriers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Undocumented Immigrant ◽  
Undocumented Migrant ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Migrant Youth

Margarita Salas-Crespo came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant at the age of ten. Despite language barriers and without access to U.S. citizenship, she excelled in every way. Living as an undocumented migrant through much of her childhood, she later qualified for DACA and was able to pursue an education and career working in and with Latino/a communities. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school and college. Salas-Crespo reflects on her migration to the United States, the challenges she faced as a young undocumented migrant, and the process through which she qualified for DACA. She examines the ways she has been excluded from the nation, but also considers the unique opportunities she and other migrant youth have had—and the critical perspectives they can provide—precisely because of their experience of living in the United States without government authorization. From this vantage point, Salas-Crespo speculates about what the future may hold for her and other young people living in the United States who face increased challenges after losing their DACA status.

Political Subjectivation and the In/Visible Politics of Migrant Youth Organizing in Germany and the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helge Schwiertz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Youth Organizing ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
Migrant Youth ◽  
Dominant Society ◽  
Global North ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract In countries of the Global North, migrant youth with a precarious legal status are not commonly seen as political subjects, but as subjects of politics. Against this background, this paper reflects on how migrant youth nevertheless manage to organize themselves and intervene in the dominant society, thereby emerging as unforeseen political subjects. Discussing acts of citizenship and autonomy of migration approaches, I argue for the use of a multifaceted concept of collective political subjectivation. Doing so sheds light on how migrant struggles exceed categorization as protest, moments of rupture, or imperceptible subversion. While drawing on Jacques Rancière's concept of “political subjectivation,” I go beyond his rather narrow focus by highlighting aspects of democracy, transgression, and in/visibility, as well as creative modes of identity-making, which could be further developed in the literature on political subjectivities and migrant struggles. This theoretical reflection builds on two qualitative case studies on migrant youth organizing in Germany and the United States that show the relevance of visible as well as relatively invisible politics. In both cases, I analyze two events that provide insight into this complex notion of political subjectivation: “Coming Out of the Shadows” in the United States and the counter-conferences in Germany.

Emigrant Psychoanalysts in the USA and the FBI Archives

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Goggin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Due Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
External Threats ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Rich ◽  
New Nation

Interest in the fate of the German psychoanalysts who had to flee Hitler's Germany and find refuge in a new nation, such as the United States, has increased. The ‘émigré research’ shows that several themes recur: (1) the theme of ‘loss’ of one's culture, homeland, language, and family; and (2) the ambiva-lent welcome these émigrés received in their new country. We describe the political-social-cultural context that existed in the United States during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Documentary evidence found in the FBI files of three émigré psychoanalysts, Clara Happel, Martin Grotjahn, and Otto Fenichel, are then presented in combination with other source material. This provides a provisional impression of how each of these three individuals experienced their emigration. As such, it gives us elements of a history. The FBI documents suggest that the American atmosphere of political insecurity and fear-based ethnocentric nationalism may have reinforced their old fears of National Socialism, and contributed to their inclination to inhibit or seal off parts of them-selves and their personal histories in order to adapt to their new home and become Americanized. They abandoned the rich social, cultural, political tradition that was part of European psychoanalysis. Finally, we look at these elements of a history in order to ask a larger question about the appropriate balance between a liberal democratic government's right to protect itself from internal and external threats on the one hand, or crossover into the blatant invasion of civil rights and due process on the other.

Lawyers as Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Michael S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Court Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Trump Administration

Lawyers played a key role in challenging the Trump administration’s Travel Ban on entry into the United States of nationals from various majority-Muslim nations. Responding to calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which were amplified by social media, lawyers responded to the Travel Ban’s chaotic rollout by providing assistance to foreign travelers at airports. Their efforts led to initial court victories, which in turn led the government to soften the Ban somewhat in two superseding executive actions. The lawyers’ work also contributed to the broader resistance to the Trump administration by dramatizing its bigotry, callousness, cruelty, and lawlessness. The efficacy of the lawyers’ resistance to the Travel Ban shows that, contrary to strong claims about the limits of court action, litigation can promote social change. General lessons about lawyer activism in ordinary times are difficult to draw, however, because of the extraordinary threat Trump poses to civil rights and the rule of law.

Religion, Race, and Sports

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Scholes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Baseball Player ◽  
Sports History ◽  
Jim Crow Era ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
African American Race

Race, religion, and sports may seem like odd bedfellows, but, in fact, all three have been interacting with each other since the emergence of modern sports in the United States over a century ago. It was the sport of boxing that saw a black man become a champion at the height of the Jim Crow era and a baseball player who broke the color barrier two decades before the civil rights movement began. In this chapter, the role that religion has played in these and other instances where race (the African American race in particular) and sports have collided will be examined for its impact on the relationship between race and sports. The association of race, religion, and sports is not accidental. The chapter demonstrates that all three are co-constitutive of and dependent on each other for their meaning at these chosen junctures in American sports history.

Excavating the Layers of Trauma in Homelands and Hostlands: Supporting Political Refugees in U.S. Schools

2021 ◽  
pp. 155545892199751
Author(s):  
Mehtap Akay ◽  
Reva Jaffe-Walter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Education System ◽  
Home Country ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Refugee Students ◽  
Political Refugees ◽  
Language And Education ◽  
Insight Into

This article details how a newly arrived Turkish refugee student navigates schooling in the United States. It highlights the trauma a purged Turkish families experience in their home country and their challenges as newcomers unfamiliar with their new country’s dominant culture, language, and education system. The case narrative provides insight into how children of Turkish political refugees are often overlooked in the context of U.S. schools, where teachers lack adequate training and supports. By illuminating one refugee family’s experiences in U.S. schools, the case calls for leaders to develop holistic supports and teacher education focused on the needs of refugee students.

Civil Rights and the Negro in the United States

1965 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 222-222
Author(s):  
Stuart Sellinger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States
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