Ser Indocumentados en Miami: A History of Coloniality and Regional Racialization

This panel explores how State imposed categories defining individuals’ legal status (e.g. undocumented, refugee, citizen) are lived, contested, and re-defined on the ground. It captures how three unique Latina/o groups... [ view full abstract ]

This panel explores how State imposed categories defining individuals’ legal status (e.g. undocumented, refugee, citizen) are lived, contested, and re-defined on the ground. It captures how three unique Latina/o groups negotiate questions of citizenship and belonging across immigration status, legal contexts, and intersectional identities. The first two papers explore how the claims-making processes of undocumented Mexican-origin young adults differ across legal context, specifically across states (California and Georgia) and over time (before and after the implementation of DACA). The second two papers delve into how local processes of racialization and colonial experiences impact claims and understandings of citizenship. Specifically, how undocumented immigrants’ status claims reflect colonial/racial projects unique to urban global spaces, and how the broader racialization of Latinos as foreign and colonial legacies impact Puerto Ricans’ understandings of their “legally” defined citizenship. Through these cases, this panel addresses how conceptions of “worth” and “deservingness” evolve across groups and in distinct contexts as individuals seek to carve out a space for themselves in the national community.

Rafael Ramirez Solórzano
Exploring how undocumented youth activists in 2010 reshaped political activism in South Florida has led me to discover that within the city of Miami there exists a different racialization project for undocumented migrants, compared to others in the U.S. Drawing on in-depth interviews with activists from the Trail of Dreams (2010), and primary sources this paper discusses how “undocumented youth” bodies are produced in space and how space produced their racialized bodies. My interviews document the global colonial/racial formations of undocumented families living in urban/global cities like Miami and the ways in which these structures of coloniality has shaped their migrant rights activism and otherness among different racial/ethnic groups.