Organizing While Undocumented

Finalist, 2020 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social ProblemsHonorable Mention, 2021 Asian America Section Book Award, given by the American Sociological AssociationAn inspiring look inside immigrant youth’s political activism in perilous times Undocumented immigrants in the United States who engage in social activism do so at great risk: the threat of deportation. In Organizing While Undocumented, Kevin Escudero shows why and how—despite this risk—many of them bravely continue to fight on the front lines for their rights. Drawing on more than five years of research, including interviews with undocumented youth organizers, Escudero focuses on the movement’s epicenters—San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City—to explain the impressive political success of the undocumented immigrant community. He shows how their identities as undocumented immigrants, but also as queer individuals, people of color, and women, connect their efforts to broader social justice struggles today. A timely, worthwhile read, Organizing While Undocumented gives us a look at inspiring triumphs, as well as the inevitable perils, of political activism in precarious times.

Never before have I read an empirical and theoretical book-length treatise on intersectionality as the identity politics of a US social movement, in this case, one of the most prominent: that of unauthorized immigrant youth. This highly sophisticated analysis centers the organizing of the usually-unseen Asian ethnics without papers and interrelates social axes and activist strategies by way of the undocuqueer movement. Organizing While Undocumented is an indispensable read for anyone interested in the intersection of race, legal status, queer identity, and gender in activism and for anyone seeking a model of meticulous and incisive analysis that is both razor-sharp and inspiring., Organizing While Undocumented is a timely and powerful book that makes a major contribution to contemporary debates over immigration and citizenship. The courage and tenacity of undocumented Latino and Asian youth activists shine through in this book, revealing inspiring stories of personal and societal transformation., Since the massive immigrant-rights protests of 2006, the undocumented youth movement has emerged as one of the most powerful social movements of our time. Organizing While Undocumented offers an enlightening perspective of the more nuanced aspects of identify formation and cross-issue campaigns that undergird the importance and influence of this social movement. Timely and incredibly relevant, this book is a must-read for those interested in the contemporary processes of migration, identity, and protest., The book does a great job highlighting how immigrant-rights activists think about and mobilize their intersectional identities to advance their civil rights agenda locally and nationally. [...] Escudero’s work will certainly be a model to conduct further work on mobilizations around immigrant rights.

Kevin Escudero is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University.