“We Share Our Stories and Risk Losing It All”: Activist‐Storytelling as Edgework in the Undocumented Youth Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily R. Cabaniss ◽  
Heather Shay
Keyword(s):  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Youth Movement

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.

Diversity, Leadership, and Authenticity in the Undocumented Youth Movement

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-61
Author(s):  
Fanny Lauby
Keyword(s):  
Participant Observation ◽  
Field Research ◽  
State Level ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Immigration Status ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
New Members ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Electoral Connection ◽  
The Social

AbstractThe undocumented youth movement is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and immigration status. I argue that racial and immigration status diversity has a direct impact on the movement's ability to “expand the scope of conflict,” that is to say recruiting new members, reaching out to elected officials, and establishing representative leadership—elements that are critical to the sustainability and effectiveness of a movement. Findings also indicate that immigration status diversity plays a complex role. The presence of citizen allies brings both risks and benefits to the movement, as they reinforce the electoral connection sought by elected officials while at the same time jeopardizing the authenticity of the movement. Results are based on field research conducted between 2012 and 2015 in NJ and NY, including participant observation in state-level campaigns and interviews with over 130 immigrant youths, allies, and elected officials. This article contributes to the social movement literature by providing empirical evidence of the challenges present within diverse coalitions. It addresses the question of immigration status diversity, an issue that affects the immigration movement but speaks more broadly to the role of allies in social movements.

BEYOND THE DREAMERS: COLLECTIVE IDENTITY AND SUBJECTIVITY IN THE UNDOCUMENTED YOUTH MOVEMENT*

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-363
Author(s):  
Tara R. Fiorito
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
Discursive Positioning ◽  
Affective Experiences ◽  
Collective Actor

Based on longitudinal ethnographic research, this article explores what the concepts of collective identity and subjectivity contribute in the case of the undocumented youth movement in Los Angeles. I show that while the collective identity of the Dreamers has been used to organize undocumented youth from different backgrounds and regions into a recognizable collective actor successfully engaged in political action, nowadays the Dreamer identity is a matter of contention among undocumented youth. I show that the basis of subjective sharing and belonging is now less derived from the collective identity of the Dreamer and more from the shared subjectivities of undocumented youths, constituted by embodied experiences of exclusion, stigmatization, and empowerment. I thus argue for a stronger engagement with the concept of subjectivity in social movement research, as it offers a greater understanding of the profound effects of embodied and affective experiences of negative discursive positioning, trauma, emancipation, and healing.

Intersectionality as a multipurpose collective action frame: The case of the undocumented youth movement

Ethnicities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Terriquez ◽  
Tizoc Brenes ◽  
Abdiel Lopez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
College Students ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Documentary Evidence ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Action Frame

During the early 2010s, undocumented youth activists were leading the charge to gain congressional support for the federal Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, which sought to provide a pathway to citizenship for eligible undocumented youth in the United States. Led primarily by Latino college students and graduates, this movement became very attentive to and inclusive of the concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer members. Drawing on semi-structured interviews of Latino lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer undocumented youth and other documentary evidence, this article demonstrates how activists can deploy intersectionality as a collective action frame that serves multiple purposes. Specifically, intersectionality can function as: (1) a diagnostic frame to help activists make sense of their own multiply-marginalized identities; (2) a motivational frame to inspire action; and (3) a prognostic frame that guides how activists build inclusive organizations and bridge social movements. We show how this frame guided the ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and other undocumented activists interpreted their own life experiences, prompted them to build inclusive organizations, and broadened the scope of their movement. We conclude by arguing that activists have the potential to adopt intersectionality as a master frame that strengthens ties among various movements mobilizing marginalized populations.

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