I need someone to make a PowerPoint presentation for me (sociology class)

Family Activism Amalia Pallares Published by Rutgers University Press Pallares, Amalia. Family Activism: Immigrant Struggles and the Politics of Noncitizenship. ed. Rutgers University Press, 2014. Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/book/35266. https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book [ Access provided at 21 Apr 2021 03:58 GMT from Middle Tennessee State University ] https://muse.jhu.edu/book/35266 97 4 •

OUR YOUTH, OUR FAMILIES DREAM Act Politics and Neoliberal Nationalism When our immigrant youth are under attack what do we do? Stand up, fight back When our families are under attack what do we do? Stand up, fight back —Chants during a rally organized by the Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL) to stop the deportation of the Mathe family, August 2, 2011 As the members of the Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL) chanted and walked in a circle outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices in the summer of 2011, a bystander might have viewed this as another immigrant rally designed to stop a deportation, an ordinary occurrence in a movement that had mobilized for over five years. But a closer examination would reveal that this is an unusual crowd, not consisting of the usual combination of middle-aged activists, some children, and a few youths present in most rallies, but mostly of youths under the age of twenty-five. Moreover, most of these youths were part of a national undocumented youth movement that had primarily been advocating passage of the DREAM Act (a bill that would legalize youth who attend college or do military service for two years), while other sectors of the movement had been advocating comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) that would halt the deportation of thousands of more family members such as the Mathes. Why was this rally significant? The previous specialization of activism (youth organizations) appears to have been dissolved as youth began to cross over and organize actions that were not exclusively youth-oriented but about the defense of family. Additionally, the rally reflects an important power shift. The IYJL youth did not merely join a rally organized by other sectors in the movement, but organized the rally themselves. Later that month six youths representing Chicago-based IYJL, Nuestra Voz (Melrose Park and adjoining 98 Family Activism suburbs), and the more recently created Latino Action Youth League (LOYAL, based in the suburb of Addison in DuPage County), engaged in civil disobedience outside a union hall where a Secure Communities hearing was being held. While several IYJL youth had engaged in acts of civil disobedience in other cities, this was the first one in Chicago. Moreover, the action was not about youth rights exclusively, but called for the termination of the Secure Communities program, which affects all immigrants and tears apart immigrant families.1 The signs and posters used by the participating youth referred specifically to the effect of Secure Communities on immigrant communities and families. As I argued in chapter 3, the concept of “family” in the analysis of the immigrant movement has gone beyond the organizing of families as families, and includes other sectors and groups that are also engaging with the notion of family as a signifier for a broader, collective, and relational subjectivity that informs the political identity and strategy creation of activists. The evolving ways in which youth organizations like IYJL and Nuestra Voz articulate and express their distinct family issues and concerns signal not only the increasing and more autonomous role of youth within the larger immigrant debate but also the key role the family claim can play in interrupting a neoliberal frame that has shaped the advocacy for the DREAM Act and the representations of DREAM-eligible undocumented youth. In juxtaposition to a neoliberal framework that posits undocumented youth as highly talented potential individual producers, a relational framework relies on drawing connections between the youth and their families and communities as a rationale for their worthiness. Since 2006, family has been the main point of reference for a relational identity in the movement and one that the youth have made, either because their struggle is not only for them but also for their undocumented siblings and, indirectly, for their parents, or because their own deportation would lead to their separation from their families. However, in a quest to demonstrate the “worthiness” of youth, this relational subjectivity was put aside and played a minimal role in the formal advocacy for the DREAM Act carried out by politicians, civic leaders, and youth themselves in 2010 as well as in earlier campaigns. In this chapter, I explain how this neoliberal model has shaped the advocacy for and politics surrounding the DREAM Act, and how the 2010 advocacy for DREAM as well as the subsequent failed DREAM vote led to the direct juxtaposition of the neoliberal and relational frames within the movement, as well as a postvote repositioning of the undocumented youth on questions of strategy. While these challenges have not undermined the neoliberal framework, they have served to solidify the standing of “family” as a basis for cohesion and have led to the integration of youth and family issues within the movement. It has also, for the youth, further unveiled the promises and limits of the DREAM Act as the main anchor of their activism and led them to pursue new directions. Our Youth, Our Families 99 Two Models: The Neoliberal and the Relational The analysis of immigrant family policy requires not only discussing the thousands of families that have been separated and the millions that face the possibility of separation under the current immigration regime but also the trend in immigration debates and policy to move from a prioritization of family reunification or unity as the leading rationale for entry and legalization to one that would prioritize talent, intelligence, professional abilities, and experience in order to help the United States maintain its place in the world. The last few attempts at legalization aimed to curtail family rights by decreasing the categories of relatives and increasing visas for professionals.2 This trend replaces a relational logic with one based on an ideal of global competitiveness that looks at individuals in terms of their productive ability to succeed in high-end jobs. It is important to note that this logic does not stand alone, but is buttressed by contemporaneous racialized fears of the demographic growth of the Latino population that find expression in the cultural nationalism of some nativists or restrictionists. However, if this cultural nationalism does indeed inform policy, the more utilized and “acceptable” counter to it (crossing party and ideological lines) is the claim that attracting the best brains, and not the family relationships (what immigrants can do for us, and not who they are for their U.S. citizen or resident family members), should increasingly be the basis for the granting of visas. The labor that the majority of immigrant family members produce, concentrated more in the low end of the service realm, is not only undervalued but erased from this juxtaposition. Interestingly, while both a “brain-visa” labor rationale and a nativist one would aim to decrease the number of family-based visas, the first rationale has been key in arguing for the legalization of DREAM-eligible youth. For many immigrant movement advocates, the past fifteen years of struggle have involved the defense of the relational logic both in maintaining rights to reunification as well as advocating for the rights of undocumented and mixedstatus families that are already here.3 Since the option to legalize family members in the United States without setting off a ten-year bar from returning disappeared in 2000, increasingly the legal as well as movement strategies to remain in the United States have emphasized the importance of family ties over the worthiness of specific individuals for their own sake. Away from the courtroom, in movement politics the worthiness of individuals lies in what they represent for other family members (who may or may not be citizens) and their social roles in raising responsible children, caretaking, and emotionally and economically supporting the family (see more in chapter 2). In both the legal and movement strategies, strategies that stress relational worthiness have taken precedence over strategies that stress individual worthiness apart from the role the individual plays in the family. 100 Family Activism This is quite distinct from the main strategies used to advocate the legalization of youth, which are based on a neoliberal perspective that looks at people’s individual capacities and makes claims about their worthiness based on each individual’s productive potential. Neoliberalism emphasizes the competitive, individual entrepreneur, and has a tendency to underscore the protagonistic role of the unfettered individual (de facto minimizing or privatizing the collective or familial upon which that individual’s “success” may rely). It is in this context that we must understand the DREAM advocacy that posits undocumented youth as ideal protocitizens who cannot only compete effectively in the marketplace, but upon whom the future competitiveness of the United States may depend (the future inventors, doctors, scientists, and so forth). This neoliberal perspective subsumes the familiar (and liberal) ideology of meritocracy that would claim that in the United States, an individual’s hard work will lead to rewards. This “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” philosophy (Horatio Algerism) undergirds the notion that anyone can make it in this country, however fictitious this idea may be. Another metaphor for this myth of unfettered individual success is the not uncommon “immigrant success story.” This is used for different political purposes, at times to single out specific individuals, ethnic groups, or historic migrations as successes (rendering the nonsuccess stories more questionable or laying the responsibility for their lack of success on individuals alone) or to paint an image of America as a nation of immigrants who have helped to make this country great (erasing the history of nativism and related conflict). As Tamara Nopper has argued, the myth of immigrant success is a myth precisely because it privileges human capital explanations and ignores the state’s role in promoting the integration of some immigrants over others: Unless we explicitly trace how the state collaborates with ethnic institutions, we end up coming back to what’s presumably particular about ethnic groups—as if ethnic contexts flourish outside the purview of the state. In the process, we ignore the ways state institutions assist immigrants in their quest for socioeconomic mobility after arrival, albeit to differing degrees. . . . We need to consider how the state actively promoted and promotes immigrant economic assimilation after arrival. To ignore this reality is to reproduce myths about human capital that impact how we address economic disparities between ethnic and racial groups, some of whom may not be immigrants.4 However, as Wendy Brown (2003) explains, it is the myth of unfettered human capital that neoliberalism aims to reproduce. So while this notion of unfettered human capital is historically inaccurate, this “immigrant success story” fantasy serves an ideological purpose that is congruent with the market rationality of neoliberalism. Our Youth, Our Families 101 Additionally, to the extent that we can conceptualize a neoliberal nationalism, it would be a form of nationalism that gauges American greatness by its economic competitiveness—hence the value of those who are meritorious and rise to the top lies not exclusively in their success for their own sake but in their capacity to make the United States globally competitive.5 This neoliberal nationalism both relies on and reinforces the idea that the United States is an individualist meritocracy that ensures that the best talents rise to the top to help improve U.S. global competitiveness. This sustained competitiveness, in turn, will ensure the economic growth that will continue to allow the United States to be a land of opportunity and social mobility. If the state needs to intervene in order to produce and sustain this “unfettered competitiveness,” intervene it will. Neoliberal nationalism weds classic ideas about America as a beacon of light, a land of opportunity, and a site of immigrant success, on the one hand, with a strict market rationality designed to boost the engine of global competitiveness, on the other. In this view, migrants’ worthiness depends on a combination of their ability to supposedly succeed on their own with no state assistance and on their ability to make and keep America competitive. The relationships between talent and rewards or economic growth and real opportunity are not problematized but simply assumed, despite the existence of social and economic structural inequalities that deeply complicate these relationships. However, to the extent that formal barriers are viewed as impeding this unfettered individualism, the state plays a key role in creating policies that are believed to liberate this unfettered subject and create ideal conditions for U.S. competitiveness in the global market. Selective attention can be paid to obvious forms of legal exclusion (and therefore policy targets) that must be addressed because they are viewed as obstacles to American global competitiveness. Financial deregulation in the 1990s and 2000s is one example. Another one is the changing of immigration policies that impede the recruitment of the top global talent or the advancement and mobility of the top homegrown talent. So while the contemporary nativist movement that has opposed the legalization of undocumented immigrants draws from cultural nationalism and neoconservative discourse on morality and criminality, neoliberal nationalism claims that an immigration policy that is inclusive of all those who can make the United States economically powerful and keep it competitive is what is best for the United States. This tying together of the hardworking American, the immigrant success story, and global competitiveness is exemplified in President Obama’s speech on immigration in 2010: So this steady stream of hardworking and talented people has made America the engine of the global economy and a beacon of hope around the world. And it’s allowed us to adapt and thrive in the face of technological and societal change. 102 Family Activism To this day, America reaps incredible economic rewards because we remain a magnet for the best and brightest from across the globe. Folks travel here in the hopes of being a part of a culture of entrepreneurship and ingenuity, and by doing so they strengthen and enrich that culture. Immigration also means we have a younger workforce—and a faster-growing economy—than many of our competitors. And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.6 Obama develops this idea further in his 2011 discussion of legalization as a priority for his administration in a speech in El Paso on immigration: “That’s how we’ll get this done. That’s how we can ensure that in the years ahead we are welcoming the talents of all who can contribute to this country and that we’re living up to the basic American idea that you can make it here if you try.”7 But merely willing neoliberal nationalism does not make it so. Just as socialist nationalism required what Che Guevara called a “new man,” neoliberal nationalism relies on the creation of neoliberal subjects that are characterized by ideas and behaviors that confirm and reproduce a specific mode of belonging in the United States. According to Brown (2003), neoliberalism involves the following: Neoliberalism casts the political and social spheres both as appropriately dominated by market concerns and as themselves organized by market rationality. That is, more than simply facilitating the economy, the state itself must construct and construe itself in market terms, as well as develop policies and promulgate a political culture that figures citizens exhaustively as rational economic actors in every sphere of life. Familiar here are the many privatization and outsourcing schemes for welfare, education, prisons, the police, and the military, but this aspect of neoliberalism also entails a host of policies that figure and produce citizens as individual entrepreneurs and consumers whose moral autonomy is measured by their capacity for “self-care”—their ability to provide for their own needs and service their own ambitions, whether as welfare recipients, medical patients, consumers of pharmaceuticals, university students, or workers in ephemeral occupations. . . . Neoliberal political rationality produces governance criteria along the same lines, that is, criteria of productivity and profitability, with the consequence that governance talk increasingly becomes market speak, businesspersons replace lawyers as the governing class in liberal democracies, and business norms replace juridical principles. Three main nodes of neoliberal rationality are used to advocate the worthiness of undocumented youth and specifically of undocumented students: first, the central role of productivity and competitiveness, in which the worth of a human lies primarily in his or her role in market transaction, either as producers Our Youth, Our Families 103 or consumers; second, their individuation, that is, the extent to which they can separate out and differentiate themselves from other undocumented youth; and third, their potential for self-care and self-responsibility, that is, the extent to which they can create or make themselves without any state assistance. The first feature is the positing of DREAM-eligible undocumented youth as outstanding talents who are the potential producers that will help keep America great and competitive, as well as potential consumers who will make the DREAM Act more than pay its own way in the long run. The second involves a rhetorical separation and social distinction from family members as well as other noneligible immigrants who purportedly do not occupy or have the potential to occupy the same location in the marketplace. This both confirms and reproduces this individualization upon which their claim to distinction in the marketplace rests. The third feature, the self-claiming of responsibility, while common to other undocumented migrants (who are denied any state benefits), has specific implications for undocumented youth, as it targets primarily the educational realm and lays the success or failure of their promised rise squarely in their laps. These rationalities are not always openly articulated, but are the bases for specific ways of imaging and messaging DREAM advocacy. These images of DREAMers as exceptional, as innocent, and as American (discussed in more detail in the next section) are not mere frames or representations but also reflect subjectivities that inform the ideologies and actions of undocumented youth and their supporters. In other words, I am not claiming that the politicians have merely manipulated the youth to say what will “sell” (although some of this does occur, and some of the messaging has been viewed as problematic by activist youth in recent years) or that the youth have a false consciousness that involves the uncritical embracing of neoliberalism. I am attempting, instead, to underscore the ways in which neoliberal rationalities may be shaping and even constituting youth advocacy. That is, neoliberalism has not only become a way of understanding and organizing our social world (in and of itself an important cultural and political critique) but the main filter or optic through which undocumented youth can claim a right to belong in a hostile anti-immigrant context in a world in which, according to Brown, notions of public good, universal equality, and collective rights have been undermined by the market rationality of neoliberalism. It is important to note that undocumented youth have alternative sources of rationality that informs their claims of worthiness. As Coutin (2000a), I (Pallares 2010), and others have discussed, worthiness is often gauged by morality—that is, a self-presentation of individuals as upstanding protocitizens with no criminal records, a history of community and/or church service, and an idealized family life. Undocumented youth are not exempt from these expectations, as they are expected of all the undocumented who seek exemption from deportation (either 104 Family Activism through legal or political means) and are usually built into any bill designed to legalize a larger population. Alternative positions from legal or social movement advocates have relied on more collective axes of political subjectivity such as community and family or rationales such as fairness and equality. In the eleven years since the DREAM Act was introduced, while undocumented youth have articulated some of these other positions and some politicians have tried to include them in legislation, they have been excluded or disregarded, while the neoliberal rationality has prevailed. It is also important to note that there are other ways in which neoliberal rationality can be used to discuss the regulation of migrant labor: the notion of a temporary workers program that would ensure flexible, adaptable labor also obeys a market rationality that sees humans only as capital and not in a more holistic manner. However, this chapter focuses specifically on undocumented youth who are viewed as potential “heads,” and not “hands”—that is, as they potentially fit in the higher ranks of the segmented and highly differentiated labor market, and therefore rely on the specific neoliberal rationality outlined above in their claims-making. In the following three sections of this chapter, I analyze the framing of DREAM advocacy, paying particular attention to how neoliberal rationalities have shaped claims, informed the debate, and modified different versions of the bill; explain how the undocumented youth movement shifted the struggle for DREAM from a legislative advocacy process to one of mass resistance, challenging differences within the movement as well as existing representations of the DREAMers; and discuss how this moment of empowerment and the loss of the DREAM vote in the U.S. Senate has deepened the cracks between neoliberal rationality and undocumented youth advocacy while giving new relevance to a relational strategy in which family plays a central role. The DREAM Act and the “Worthiness” of Undocumented Youth The DREAM Act was first introduced by Senator Dick Durbin in 2001. It was reintroduced in 2003, 2007, and 2009 and has also been included as a component in different bills for immigration reform. None of these efforts was successful in getting the bill passed, although the closest it came was in 2010, after a positive House vote on December 8 and a subsequent negative Senate vote ten days later in which the bill failed, by five votes, to obtain cloture. While they shared the same general goal of legalizing undocumented youth who have attended college or served in the military for two years, each version of this bill was different, as earlier, more generous provisions were challenged and dropped and new restrictions were created, narrowing the parameters of subsequent bills. By the time Our Youth, Our Families 105 the bill introduced in 2009 was voted on in the 2010 Senate, modifications made in order to squelch possible Republican opposition had already narrowed it further than previous bills. This is why many youth who advocated for it in 2010 understood it as far from perfect, but the only option available.8 Despite these differences among the versions of the bill, the three main points used to support the DREAM Act have remained consistent: the youth are exceptional; they are innocent; and they are already American. They Are Exceptional There are at least a couple of important components to the claim of youth exceptionalism: the idea that they are independent and resilient, capable of achieving on their own without any government help, and the notion that they are the brains, part of the future heads (and not hands), the talent that, if gone to waste, will not only be detrimental to them individually but will be a loss to the country. Since the DREAM Act was first introduced, a number of exceptional students have testified at congressional hearings. Politicians advocating DREAM usually utilize cases of outstanding students, and for years several undocumented students have participated in press conferences and other events as well as testified before different government bodies, highlighting their own stories to advocate DREAM. In most of these cases, the students mention their academic excellence and potential as well as the hardships they have overcome, including things such as traveling to the United States as children alone without parents, lifelong economic hardships, and different examples of exclusion and restriction from educational, work, and travel opportunities available to residents and citizens. In the 2003 Senate Immigration Committee negotiations, some Republican senators were willing to vote for DREAM to be considered by the full body of the Senate on the basis that it would provide rights for good, hardworking students who were not “to blame” for being undocumented (“Marking Up the Dream”). However, they were disturbed by two things: the possibility of any state taxpayer expenditure on financial aid for these students (the undocumented are regularly perceived as not paying taxes, even if multiple reports show that most of them do), a concern shared with some Democrats; and the possibility that the undocumented would have access to something that citizens would not get, which would then be considered a privilege. So the incorporation of the undocumented, to be acceptable by most, could not be on equal terms as citizens. Since the original bill had allowed DREAM-eligible students to have access to grants and loans, a key amendment introduced and passed in the committee stipulated that the youth would have access to loans but not grants. This amendment enabled Senator Durbin to get the majority he needed in the committee to move it to a vote of the entire Senate. However, the bill was trapped for three months as members of senators’ staff had difficulty reaching an agreement 106 Family Activism on the language of the final bill. By the time the bill was drafted, the political opening for the vote had closed, and the Senate never voted on the bill (“Marking Up the Dream”). Every new version of the bill since has excluded grants. In addition, the bill that went to a vote in 2010 excluded the youth from any health benefits until they were eligible for legal residence, after several years. Even though the assumption that immigrants somehow made it in this country with no state assistance is a myth, it has powerful consequences when it is used not only to construct a false and romantic notion of the United States as a melting pot of people who succeeded based solely on their human capital (laying the responsibility of those who do not succeed solely on themselves) but also to shape policy that imposes these assumptions on young immigrants. They will have to perform the myth. They will have no recourse but to be enactments of self-reliance, to sink or swim without receiving any benefits eligible to citizens. Hence the “good” immigrant is not only the morally outstanding one of neoconservative discourse (as outlined in the introduction) but also someone who is completely self-reliant, demonstrating that capacity for self-responsibility and self-care that Brown highlights as a key element of neoliberal subjectivity. In neoliberalism, whether as producers or consumers, the onus is on individuals to be self-propelled, to care for their bodies and souls and achieve their own economic viability, exempting the state and private industry from social support (Mascia-Lees 2011). This is not only a state discourse though, but one in which immigrants more broadly, and not only undocumented youth, have actively participated. Leo Chavez (2008) has argued that immigrants marching in 2006 displayed signs that said “we are not criminals,” “we pay taxes,” and “we are hard workers,” presenting themselves as ideal neoliberal subjects who were responsible for themselves and embodied the kind of workers needed in today’s competitive labor market able to survive without government support. The second aspect of the exceptional claim is that DREAM-eligible students are increasingly valued as potential boosters of U.S. competitiveness. This claim is present in the 2007 House hearings on DREAM and became noticeably more prominent in the 2011 hearings in the Senate. For example, in a 2007 House hearing Jamie P. Merisotis, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, testified on behalf of the DREAM Act by describing nonaction as a loss of investment: The investment already made in these students’ primary and secondary education has no chance of paying off for the nation. If you consider what our national workforce needs are in the specific sense of human capital, it is clear we are looking at an enormous shortage of educated workers in the not-too-distant future. Already we are seeing corporations recruiting overseas in critical workforce Our Youth, Our Families 107 sectors like technology, and by 2020 we will be looking at an employment gap of about 14  million people needed to fill jobs that require a college education, according to Census Bureau projections. Investing in those who are already here is our best hope for remaining competitive on a global scale. Congress can address these deficiencies in educational and economic competitiveness by making comprehensive immigration reform a reality and by passing the DREAM Act.9 Diana Furchgott-Roth, a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Employment Policy of the Hudson Institute, stated: The DREAM Act would allow students who graduate from college to use their degrees in the fields that education prepares them for. This makes the educational investment worth it both for the students, but more importantly for the rest of us. It will help us as well as them because we have more productive citizens who fill needed job openings and who can pay taxes. And the United States needs these young workers, who are presently prevented from working through no fault of their own. Our global competitiveness is enhanced by attracting bright young people such as the ones we have heard from today. We live in an open global economy, and we are continually competing against other countries. We want firms to locate and expand in the United States, creating jobs here rather than going offshore. In order to do that, we want to keep the smartest entrepreneurs and workers here. Referring to the undocumented youth who had just testified, she added: “As all of you wind down your lengthy negotiations and start the process of making a law on immigration reform, you should keep one question in mind. Why send the Martine Kalaws, the Tam Trans and the Maria Gonzalezes of the world back to their countries to compete against us here?”10 In the years between the 2007 House hearing and the 2011 Senate hearing, this position only strengthened and became more clearly represented. For example, while the students that Firchgott-Roth mentions were mostly in the humanities and social sciences, at the 2011 hearing most of the testimonies came from students from the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan referred to DREAM-eligible youth in the following way: With a college education, they can fill important jobs in fields today facing critical shortages, such as engineers and nurses and teachers. And today it’s important for folks to really understand that in these very tough economic times, our country still has about 3 million unfilled jobs open today. By 2018, we’ll need to fill 2.6 million job openings in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and 108 Family Activism mathematics. Let me say that again: 2.6  million openings in the STEM fields alone. The students who will benefit from the DREAM Act will absolutely help to fill those jobs. . . . According to a 2010 study from UCLA, those who would benefit from the DREAM Act could generate between $1.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion in income over their careers. With those extra earnings, they will purchase homes and cars and other goods to drive our economic growth. . . . All told, the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, estimates that the DREAM Act would generate $1.4  billion more in revenue than it would add in cost over the next decade. And collectively, as we strive to reduce the deficit, we simply can’t afford to leave that kind of money, those kinds of resources on the table.11 Later in the hearing Duncan replied to a question from Senator Durbin about whether the bill would generate revenues or simply be an expense: They are going to contribute. And, again, according to CBO’s numbers, this will lead to deficit reduction. To not take advantage of this as a country is simply nonsensical to me. This is an investment, not an expense. . . . And we need people who are going to be the creators, the entrepreneurs, the innovators who are going to create the next generation of jobs, the next Google, the next Facebook. I’ve seen numbers that show that of all the startup companies that are coming out of Silicon Valley, about a fourth are started by immigrants. We need that talent. We need them to drive our country forward. They are—they can be the fuel to our economic engine. So to not give them opportunity, we hurt our country. And that’s what I simply can’t get past, I can’t understand that.12 Duncan was then asked a question by Texas senator John Cornyn: CORNYN: Well, do you know—do you know for a fact that—that the young men and women here in this room who—who seek passage of this authority would, in fact, qualify for those 3 millions of jobs that are unmet right now? DUNCAN: I don’t know all these young people intimately here. So I’m here today. But I will tell you there are many young people in this room and around the country, in your home state and mine, who when we talk about almost 2 million unfilled STEM jobs, and we know that’s the future economic engine of our country, could many of the young people in this room and around the country help to fill those jobs and drive the economy? No question in my mind. Absolutely. I’ve worked with many of them in the Chicago public schools. Extraordinarily talented.13 This is not to imply that Duncan and other politicians and educators do not mention issues of fairness or justice. They do mention them briefly, but they Our Youth, Our Families 109 spend most of their hearing time relying on economic arguments because these have become the primary justification for the bill. They Are Innocent One of the most prevalent claims used by politicians and other civil society supporters, and to some extent by some youth advocates during the first years of lobbying for the bill, is the idea that DREAM-eligible youth are innocent because they were brought here when they were very young and did not knowingly break the law. In their narration of specific individual cases, politicians frequently emphasize the very young age of the individuals when they migrated and their lack of knowledge that they were breaking any law. They also like to emphasize the fact that many youth did not learn until much later in life that they were actually undocumented, further emphasizing their innocence.14 Here is where politicians are most likely to mention fairness, as they often state that the youth should not pay for the crimes of their parents. For example, Senator Charles Schumer from New York, a supporter of the act, stated in the 2011 hearing: First, the DREAM Act comports with basic American traditions of enforcing the rule of law and holding individuals accountable for their actions. Unlike other individuals who might fall under the category of being an illegal immigrant, the DREAM Act only applies to young persons who made no decision to come to America. None of the young people who would benefit from the DREAM Act broke the law when they came here. They had no intent to break the law, and there is no law they can be prosecuted for breaking. This is an undisputed fact. The best thing about America, the thing I’m proudest of, is that we each stand on our two feet. We’re not judged by who our parents are, what our parents did for a living, or when, why or how our parents came to this country. We’re judged by our own actions. And the deal we all abide by is that, if we work hard and play by the rules, the American Dream is available to each and every one of us. But too many still say we should punish people not for their own actions but for actions of their parents. Well, that’s un-American, and it violates the very spirit of our Constitution, which specifically says that “there shall be no corruption of blood,” meaning our founding fathers specifically endorsed the concept that children should not be punished for the sins of their parents.15 Schumer is not alone, as several politicians who support DREAM make a similar point. As other scholars have discussed, this claim values the youth by basically criminalizing their parents (see Abrego 2011; Gonzales and Chavez 2012). The impediment or obstacle to the youth’s success is the criminality of the parents and not the actions of the state that, instead, steps in as a compassionate savior. 110 Family Activism There is no questioning of the social construction of illegality or of the criminality of undocumented migration (Ngai 2004), but rather the making of an exception for these youth by absolving them from the choices of their parents, in the process enabling them to unharness all their potential.16 This process of separating the youth from the parents requires a performance of their individuation as the sole authors of their destiny. In many of the youth’s testimonies in Congress, little if any mention is made of their parents’ contribution to their success or even of their relationship to family members. What gets emphasized is the individual story of struggle, innocence, talent, realization of their status, and lack of ability to fulfill their potential. Until quite recently it was rare to see a parent or other family member appear next to the youth. One obvious reason was protection, as family members and especially parents are usually undocumented as well, and many have not publicly come out as such. However, it also serves to protect the claims of the youth as exceptional deserving and unattached individuals. While youth advocating for DREAM in 2010 were far more likely to mention their parents in spaces outside of congressional testimonies, and, more recently, in coming out events to supportive crowds, they hesitated to mention their families when doing public advocacy to a general public. IYJL activist Reyna Wences stated: It depends on who I am talking to. When I talk to people who are more supportive or potential supporters then I feel like I can bring up my family. And I say things like “Yeah, I am a DREAM act–eligible student but this is the reason why, because of my family” and I go into why we came to this country and that the fear that it means to be undocumented, but not just for ourselves but for people we consider our families. And when I speak to people who I do not know if they are supportive or not or that may not be then I don’t.17 What Wences’s comment implicitly refers to is how opponents can make use of these associations with family members. This is the reason why even supporters and advocates who make no explicit reference to the supposed “crimes” of the parents opted to exclude parents from their narratives. This exclusion serves a purpose. Many politicians who supported DREAM, especially the more moderate Democrats and Republicans, did not question the criminalization of the undocumented, but claimed that the youth should be an exception. The opponents, by contrast, often mentioned and reinforced the association with their families to invoke future flow whenever possible. The family ties of the youth were used to signal future chain migration. DREAM opponents claim that DREAM would create an incentive for more parents to migrate and bring their children, as well as lead to the legalization of the parents who are criminalized. Our Youth, Our Families 111 While these concerns have been addressed through the years by modifications of the bill that do not make future migrants eligible, and create large time lags and obstacles for the parents of DREAM-eligible youth to become legalized (it would have taken twenty-one years in the 2010 bill), they were still raised by senators opposed to immigrant rights during the Senate debate in December 2010. Because most undocumented migration is criminalized, separating the youth from their families in both rhetoric and policy serves a dual purpose: it dissociates them from their parents who are held responsible for their situation, and it differentiates them from the collectivity of families out there who are viewed as constantly expanding, increasing the flow and creating chain migration. It distinguishes them from the foreign bodies that have been so collectively vilified not only as workers but also as bearers of reproductive power. Moreover, these fears are also revealed in opponents’ increasing insistence on limiting the pool of DREAM-eligible people by cutting the age limit further. While the initial bill had no age restrictions for DREAM-eligibility, as long as someone migrated before age sixteen and had been in the country for a lengthy period, later versions created age limits, the 2010 bill lowering it to age twenty-nine from thirty-five in the 2009 version. This would in effect mean the ineligibility of thousands of youth who have aged out even if in every other way they have met the requirements. The innocence argument also serves to victimize the youth as products of the “bad” actions of their parents. As victims, they are viewed as needing protection and being politically helpless, while, ironically, still expected to help themselves in the economic and educational market. So their political agency is minimized, as they were expected only to provide narratives of their life stories, plead their cases, and testify to governmental bodies, performing conventional actions of advocacy that do not in any way challenge or complicate their image as innocent victims. This would change in 2010. They Are American One of the most powerful claims that is repeated by both youth and politicians is that undocumented youth are essentially American in every way. This gets reinforced in narratives equally made by youth and their advocates about youth having barely any or no memory of their lives in their land of origin and being lost if sent back, and in claims that this is the only country they know as home. Dominant representations of the Americanism of youth are those that focus on cultural assimilation and military patriotism. Advocates claim that fluency in English and the cultural practices of youth already make them American in every way. Youth speak of the values they acquired, such as the promise of the American Dream, usually defined as the notion that if you study and work hard, you will make it. Politicians point to the hard work of the students as evidence that they have embraced American values, confirming that 112 Family Activism they are part of us, not strangers, “the other” that Bonnie Honig (2001) refers to. This de facto Americanism is a key way in which DREAM-eligible students are differentiated from immigrants who came as adults, have difficulty with English or speak with an accent, and are less familiar with American popular culture and values. Additionally, while undocumented people cannot join the military, politicians and military officials testifying on behalf of DREAM frequently mention the patriotism of immigrants who are permanent residents, and their willingness to put their lives on the line. According to Hector Amaya (2007), there are approximately 42,000 permanent residents who constitute 2 percent of the military and 17.7 percent of those who directly handle weapons. Since 2004, not only is their citizenship expedited when they enlist, but since 2001 permanent residents have been granted posthumous citizenship in case of death during service (Perry 2012).18 Politicians also mention cases of youth who have been in Reserve Office Training Corps (ROTC) programs and who dream of serving the military in their desire to give something back to the country they so love. Taken together, these notions of exceptionalism, innocence, and Americanism work to present DREAM-eligible students as ideal actors for boosting U.S. global competitiveness: the youth are presented as exceptional in their talent and self-resilience, innocent individuals separated and even freed from their families and communities, interested in their own advancement but devoid of a more collective consciousness or political agency. They are viewed as Americans who are culturally assimilated, loyal, and patriotic, willing to help increase the productivity and place of the United States in the world. During the 2010 struggle for DREAM, however, this representation would simultaneously become more utilized and come into question by the youth it was designed to protect. IYJL and the 2010 Struggle for the DREAM Act In November 2006, after the megamarches had eliminated the possibility of the 2005 Sensen-Brenner bill becoming law, the Democrats won the House and Senate.19 This political shift as well as the momentum from the megamarches led movement actors to view this as a window of opportunity to get immigration reform passed. President George W. Bush’s agenda had involved an immigration reform bill that included a guest worker program; it was supported by several members of the Republican Party who wanted to ensure a flexible and low-cost labor supply. However, both bills in the House and Senate failed to gain approval, and since June 2007 there has not been a successful effort to arrive at a compromise bill. Between 2007 and 2010, however, the immigrant movement continued to pursue a relatively unified strategy for CIR with the understanding that an inclusive bill that guaranteed some form of legalization for most of Our Youth, Our Families 113 the eleven million undocumented was the option that would offer relief to most people. In exchange for broad reform, some of the main advocacy organizations realized that they would have to concede on enforcement, as most congressional representatives would not vote for a legalization bill that did not include enforcement measures. The extent of enforcement concessions and the extent and depth of legalization options were issues over which different sectors would struggle, but the general understanding was that CIR was the main goal and would be the focus of strategizing, messaging, and agenda creation. Strategies included advocating CIR, marching, and electoral strategies that would support CIR supporters in Congress and the presidency. Obama’s victory in 2008 had created great expectations, as he had campaigned in support of immigration reform and committed to addressing the issue early in his first term. However, by early 2010 it was becoming increasingly clear that CIR would not be introduced in Congress, and movement activists had begun to lose hope. In the meantime, fall 2009 and all of 2010 were a time of resurgence of youth activism within the movement. While activism for the DREAM Act had existed for practically a decade, in the years after the megamarches it was understood by both tacit and overt agreement that CIR would be prioritized over the DREAM Act. Youth had focused on activism around individual deportation cases, such as the case of Rigo Padilla, a twenty-one-year-old University of Illinois at Chicago student who was facing deportation in December 2009. Padilla’s case gained national attention, and during the fall of 2009 youth activists, several immigrant organizations, educators, and religious and community leaders participated in an intense petition and action campaign to stop his deportation. At the very last minute, his deportation was stopped, constituting a success and leading local undocumented youth organizers of the campaign to realize that they could be effective. Near the end of this campaign, several of these youth, including Padilla, founded the IYJL, an organization of undocumented youth based in Chicago. After Padilla’s stay, IYJL pursued a strategy of undocumented youth coming out to each other, in meetings on campus and in community settings. After a couple of these events, they began to develop the idea of coming out as a public action that would have a wide attendance and media coverage. In their view, it was important to increasingly take an open and public stand as undocumented youth, meaning coming out openly and publicly as undocumented, even if it meant facing the risk of possible deportation. They wanted to pursue it as a national strategy as well, as they considered overcoming the fear of showing oneself a necessary first step to assuming political agency in their struggle. Coming out publicly not only would provide a distinct and different face to the undocumented for a broader public but also would encourage other undocumented youth to have hope in a shared future and become involved in the struggle. Since IYJL 114 Family Activism was at that time a member of United We Dream (UWD), a national umbrella organization organizing for the rights of undocumented youth, it proposed to UWD a “Coming Out of the Shadows” week in which youth organizations in several cities would participate. Despite the reluctance of some members, UWD did finally vote to support this plan. While some local organizers also questioned the safety of this strategy, IYJL was able to gain the support of several grassroots organizations in addition to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), and, with legal advice, planned the event with seven members who were willing to assume the risk. On March 10, 2010, seven youth came out of the shadows in front of Federal Plaza, where Senator Dick Durbin’s office is located. After marching from Daley Plaza to Federal Plaza, they stood on a stage, and each person stated his or her name, followed by “I am undocumented and unafraid,” and explained, in her or his own words, the effect of their legal status on their lives. This was not like the testimonies where students tried to prove how outstanding or deserving they were, but instead they expressed their simple desires to live freely, study, and love without obstacles, interruption, and pain. Their moving stories led many of the hundreds gathered to tears. They discussed how their legal status shaped their lives in the most basic of ways, such as not allowing them to drive, to have a library card, to work. They talked about their love of the United States but also expressed their anger about the hardships endured, creating, for the first time, a public safe space to be critical. Tania Unzueta stated, “I believe that we have only one life and that we are not free. In this country we are not free.” They stressed the relational dimensions of their identity, emphasizing not only their dreams but also how staying here meant fulfilling their parents’ dreams, making their parents’ sacrifice worth it, and how being deported would be intolerable because it would mean being unable to see their parents again. One youth, Nicolas Gonzalez, stated that his mother’s death from cancer after working in toxic conditions in a factory made him want to stay so that his mother’s sacrifice would be worth something. Another speaker, Ireri Unzueta, expressed that her main reason for wanting to stay in the United States was her love for her family: But the thought of not being able to come back and laugh with my parents and sister keeps me here. The thought of not being able to kiss them or see them when I miss them or they miss me or when we miss each other, that keeps me here, so I stay. . . . I am done holding myself back. I am done feeling like I have to choose between my family and the life that I want. I choose both. I choose to fight for both. Choose to fight with me. My name is Ireri, I am undocumented and not afraid. Still hoping for CIR with the DREAM Act included, the youth encouraged Senator Durbin to work toward passage of the DREAM Act and CIR. This Our Youth, Our Families 115 Coming Out of the Shadows action, the first held in the nation, was repeated by undocumented youth organizations in several other states that month, consolidating the youth movement and increasingly gaining more strength and support from the broader immigrant movement. With this new momentum and increasing power and visibility in the movement, the youth took two important steps in the months that followed. First, with CIR increasingly less viable, they began to organize toward the possibility of pursuing the DREAM Act as a stand-alone bill. In addition to viability issues, they maintained that a DREAM-alone bill would not include additional enforcement, something any CIR bill would contain, and that witnessing the criminalization of their communities, they were not willing to support any bill that increased enforcement and criminalization. IYJL, with some internal division, voted overwhelmingly to support a DREAM-only strategy, joining other DREAM advocacy organizations as well as youth organizations that had made a similar choice. Second, they opted for a strategy of civil disobedience, a dramatic change designed to call attention to the issue in a novel way. Both of these decisions challenged immigration politics as usual and created tensions within the movement and with politicians. Several immigrant rights organizations had mixed views on this strategy, and therefore while supportive, were not necessarily prone to putting their force behind this position. The arguments opposed to the DREAM-only strategy can be grouped into two main positions: the practical argument and the ethical argument. The practical argument was visibly articulated by Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez and supported by most of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as well as the Reform Immigration for America (RIFA) campaign and many important national immigrant rights organizations.20 The basic claim was that in a somewhat hostile political environment, the passing of the DREAM Act would mean no possibility of a majority vote for CIR, as very timidly supportive legislators would claim they had already done enough to support immigration. The strategy was to continue to hold off on DREAM, since CIR would include DREAM anyway, or to advocate for that included DREAM. This argument stood, however, on the possibility of there being any opportunity to pass CIR in the upcoming years, something that seemed increasingly questionable by the spring of 2010. It also was anchored on a comprehensive policy model as opposed to an incremental or gradual model. This was also an object of criticism from some advocates, who believed that comprehensive change in the United States was extraordinarily difficult to push through successfully (the recent health care bill being the most obvious reminder). In response to this argument, IYJL and other youth nationwide argued that CIR was no longer feasible, and that DREAM was a policy that stood a chance. To anchor DREAM to CIR would mean, at that political moment, the death of both. 116 Family Activism The ethical argument was anchored on the importance of the family, as a stand-in for a broader, more inclusive constituency for immigration reform. The claim was that the DREAM Act excluded or did not do anything for families that were facing separation, primarily due to the deportation of undocumented parents who were not DREAM-eligible. This was a powerful critique at a moment when family had become consolidated as one of the two main frames that anchored the movement (work being second but less powerful at this point). Between 2006 and 2010, the threat and dire consequences of family separation had become the main humanitarian issue that had bonded different sectors of the immigrant movement, the rationale that religious, civil rights, labor, and community leaders could agree upon as they witnessed cases of family separation.21 The position sustained by those who opposed DREAM-only was that it was not inclusive enough and would do nothing to stop the deportations. In March 2010, Reverend Walter “Slim” Coleman, of La Familia Latina Unida (LFLU), wrote a widely circulated letter warning of the dangers of straying from CIR to adopt DREAM as a stand-alone bill: There is another danger: The bait dangled before the movement by the Democratic Leadership, the bait of isolated legislation for the Dream Act and/or for [agricultural] jobs is being swallowed by people desperate to deliver some relief to some of the people. We must be clear that the price for limited legalization is the same as the price for legalization Para Todos [for all]. To pay that price and leave 10 million people without any protection, to unleash the dogs of I.C.E. on them, is unacceptable—ask the ten million and the twenty-five million that are part of their social, economic, and religious lives!22 Youth leaders responded by stating that they were part of families too, and that if the DREAM Act stopped them from being deported, it would already be preventing family separations. They also stated that if legalized, they would continue the struggle to legalize their parents, something that was not a given with the DREAM Act. Many of them had frank conversations with their parents, and all of the activists I interviewed stated they had their family’s unequivocal support. In a personal interview with the author, Reyna Wences commented on her mother’s response: My mom said, “You do whatever it takes. Don’t worry about us, worry about yourself. If the DREAM Act is going to help, go for it.” She said, “I understand things are really rough right now.” . . . She was not going to blame me. She was not going to feel forgotten. . . . She said, “I understand, I know, think about yourself, think about your brother.” . . . I knew that if my family was ok with it . . . we had our conversations with our parents so we were like, “We have our community, Our Youth, Our Families 117 screw what you are saying. We are the undocumented ones here, these are the undocumented families . . . this is what we are doing . . . we have the ok.”23 The parents of the youth also played a critical role in defending the DREAMonly position. A few of them made public statements in support of the DREAM Act. Arguing that they had migrated primarily to provide their children with a better life, they emphasized that the legalization of their children was not only their children’s dream but their own dream as well. Activist Rosi Carrasco, Tania and Ireri Unzueta’s mother, stated in an interview: “I am fine with them legalizing and not us because we came for them, and we are only suffering because they suffer. And number two, because I am absolutely confident that [after their legalization] they will keep struggling for us, and we will fight together for the parents.”24 In an effort to pressure for the DREAM Act, the youth embarked upon a civil disobedience campaign that picked up on an immigrant rights civil disobedience campaign initiated in the spring by supportive citizens and permanent residents, but was fundamentally different in that undocumented youth participated directly, risking possible deportation after their arrest. This made the stakes much higher, as the previous civil disobedience actions had purposefully only included U.S. citizens. A few of the citizen participants in the earlier civil disobedience actions whom I interviewed expressed this as a key opportunity to be able to do something meaningful on behalf of those who could not risk arrest. While the undocumented youth I interviewed expressed gratitude, the acts of civil disobedience also prompted discussions among them about the importance of assuming their own agency by risking arrest and deportation. Even before Arizona Bill HB1070 was passed, IYJL leaders had been focusing on Arizona as a possible site for their first act of civil disobedience.25 On May 20, 2010, IYJL participated in an action in which four youth refused to leave Senator John McCain’s Arizona office and were arrested. IYJL member Tania Unzueta played a key role in organizing the event as well as participating, but was not one of the four arrested. Three of the arrested had deportation proceedings initiated against them, although they were eventually not deported. This action was followed by successive acts of civil disobedience in summer and fall 2010. Undocumented youth activists, however, had different positions on the civil disobedience strategy. While a loose coalition of activists had initiated the civil disobedience actions and continued to stage such actions in different locations (what would become the National Immigrant Youth Alliance [NIYA]), some of the UWD organizers were not supportive of these actions, concerned that they would taint the positive image of DREAM-eligible youth they had worked so hard to build. Several of these actions were planned by UWD member organizations without telling UWD leadership first, as they 118 Family Activism believed UWD would disagree. In a Washington, D.C., civil disobedience action in August 2010, UWD had planned for a mass “graduation” in which DREAMeligible youth would don their caps and gowns, give speeches, and perform a graduation ceremony. The youth who were planning to engage in civil disobedience during that event kept their plans from UWD, adding the surprise element to the act. When it became apparent that they were going to get themselves arrested, Congressman Gutierrez, who was engaging in civil disobedience himself, argued with a couple of the IYJL youth, trying to convince them to desist, without success. Additionally, UWD leaders proposed other less controversial strategies instead, such as blood donation and food drives organized by DREAM-eligible students in their respective states, to show the broader public that they were solid, contributing “citizens.” Wences, frustrated about UWD’s insistence that the youth do this instead of pressing civil disobedience or advocacy work in the face of an imminent vote in upcoming weeks, stated: United We Dream was taking a completely different route from what we were going for, from what the sit-ins had started. The different route was more pacifist, more compliant, highlighting “look at these poor DREAM Act students, they are willing to donate blood.” . . . It was November, we were so close, we still needed a lot of phone banking and here you have one of the most recognized and powerful networks for undocumented youth saying “we need to show them how American we are by donating blood and doing food drives for Thanksgiving.” It was ridiculous. I didn’t want to plan that.26 Finally, as the DREAM Act vote approached and Democrats modified the bill to make it more palatable to Republicans, rumors spread that while the youth had not been officially consulted, a member of UWD had actually been the only youth who had held conversations with the legislators on the changes. The accommodationist strategy of UWD seemed to get them closer to Congress but drove a wedge between UWD and IYJL and other organizations in the undocumented youth movement that wanted to pursue more contestatory strategies. The civil disobedience strategy had several audiences. One was clearly the atlarge public and congressional representatives, to raise awareness and support for DREAM, but there was also the audience of the broader immigrant movement and Latino politicians supportive of CIR who were initially reluctant to support DREAM only. The civil disobedience risk did bear fruit. The increased visibility, sympathy, and power gained by the youth and their ability to use more dramatic pressure tactics led to new conversations and a change of position of many policy leaders and politicians, as well as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which, by mid-fall 2010, was fully supporting DREAM. Chicago’s IYJL was a key player in this shift, as the two politicians most important for the introduction of and Our Youth, Our Families 119 support for DREAM were from Illinois. Senator Dick Durbin, the original sponsor since 2000, had stated to the youth and several other organizations that summer that he would reintroduce it but only if the broader movement supported it, as it needed all the support possible to be viable. Congressman Luis Gutierrez had stuck to his CIR strategy and remained reluctant. While the broader movement wanted to openly pressure Durbin and challenge Gutierrez, IYJL played a key intermediary and diplomatic role, attempting to persuade both politicians to move forward. When it appeared that Gutierrez was not budging, IYJL planned for an act of civil disobedience in his office. Activists in other immigrant organizations strongly advised against it, concerned that the movement would look divided and that Gutierrez, the strongest advocate for immigration reform in the House, would be viewed as a movement target. As plans moved ahead, lastminute conversations with his staff finally led to a meeting with a group of the youth. In this meeting, Gutierrez committed to considering the issue. Shortly after, Gutierrez openly started supporting DREAM, albeit framing it as a step to a larger reform that would keep families in mind. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus and RIFA soon followed in their support. By late fall the debate had been resolved and an impasse avoided, and a broader movement was in full force for DREAM, collecting as many sponsorships as possible, including the support of Janet Napolitano, then head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). However, this was not enough to garner the necessary votes, and despite passing the House, the DREAM Act failed to achieve cloture in the Senate by five votes. Post–DREAM Act Vote: Being Unapologetic The loss of DREAM was a very intense moment for those active in the undocumented youth movement. Battling feelings of loss, pain, anger, and depression, IYJL members, after a short break, reflected on the process that preceded the December vote. They believed that while they had increasingly gained collective power, media attention, and popular support, their voices were not included in the actual bill design and legislative strategy. One consequence of this was that the content of the bill, altered to squelch Republican opposition (such as an extraordinary delay in petitioning parents and new age limits), was something they did not fully support but had struggled for nonetheless. Moreover, to do so, they had both reinforced the individualistic and neoliberal discourse in ways with which they were no longer comfortable. Shortly after the vote, IYJL member Alaa Mukahhal wrote for the organization’s blog: We pushed aside the fact that we would still be marginalized as conditional residents: we will pay more taxes but we get no financial aid, no federal loans, no healthcare, and we will have to pay fees so high, it was as if the country was 120 Family Activism mocking us. It didn’t make sense; how were we supposed to finish school if we qualified for nothing? Not to mention, if you were above the age cap, you would not qualify. And one felony meant we’re out of the country. Then there are fingerprints, biometrics, and selective service. Big Brother was going to be breathing down our neck. . . . Is that what we were fighting for?! Was this an act to pave the way for future intellects, doctors, architects, lawyers, teachers, nurses, and leaders; or was it an act paving the way for future laborers? . . . No person with any self-respect would even consider what we were trying to pass, no person would accept all the limitations, the conditions, and ridiculous restrictions. But we were so desperate, so hungry, and it was so close that we thought, this must be it! This is victory, we can taste it! Just one more push. We’ve made so many concessions because the reasoning went, the more we yielded the more likely it will pass. But now we know better. We now know we cannot compromise justice. We cannot compromise liberty. We cannot compromise human dignity.27 Their reflections touched on all three of the themes discussed above: the youth are exceptional, they are innocent, and they are American. Increasingly, the youth I interviewed had started to distance themselves from the image of the ideal or idealized youth and from the label of DREAMer. Some of them expressed that the actions in which youth dress in caps and gowns were not about showing that they were different from other immigrants, but were about putting a positive face on undocumented immigrants, different from the typical stereotypes of immigrants, to show that undocumented immigrants could be just like, or as good as, any student. While they viewed the idealized view of the youth as something that has been necessary to construct in their quest for DREAM, many stated in interviews that they do not consider themselves more worthy than other undocumented youth, even if they are honor students. One of the strategies they have adopted to question this exceptionalism is to work on cases of youth facing deportation who are not ideal honor students. They have also questioned the idea that they are solely responsible for their success and have pointed out the critical role of the political and economic structures that impede their progress, with particular attention to the role of the state. This is what Wences refers to when she rejects the DREAMer label: Using the word DREAMER for undocumented people is not addressing and not letting other people see. . . . I mean it sounds nice, and it’s not addressing the fact that it is systematic. Undocumented says that you have a person that is undocumented and using DREAMER is not letting people see that we are undocumented. . . . And so it feels very hypocritical, and I think that is one of the reasons why in the past few months when we were able to get out of the whole DREAM Act that happened last year we have been more unapologetic about what we say and how we say things Our Youth, Our Families 121 and the way that we frame it, which is not about blaming our parents. It’s about blaming the system or trying to find solutions for that. And the fact that we’re not DREAMERS. That word has gotten me so worked up lately because I don’t want to be a DREAMER. I don’t want the legislation to define who I am. . . . And it doesn’t allow for us to open up the debate about our families because if we keep using DREAMER then people are just going to have this notion of what a DREAMER looks like. And when we start growing up, when the DREAMERS start growing up and nothing happens, then are we going to be the DREAMERS with a family, then are we going to be the ex-DREAMERS? It’s just ridiculous. Hiding behind the label DREAMER is just not wanting to acknowledge it, not wanting to take on the fact that you are undocumented, it’s like denying it.  .  .  . DREAMER is something that the politicians put on us. When I hear DREAMER I know here comes the argument, “it wasn’t their fault, it was their parents’ fault.” “They were brought here really young” and no, that just doesn’t go with me. I don’t want to be a DREAMER, I want action.28 Wences’s comment addresses the problems some youth activists have with the special status assigned to DREAM-eligible youth, symbolized by the common practice of calling them DREAMers. She views it as a false differentiation from other undocumented individuals as well as a personalization and privatization of their condition that absolves the state by laying the responsibility for their status on their parents. IYJL, LOYAL, Nuestra Voz, and other youth organizations have challenged and attempted to reverse the criminalization of their parents. On March 10, 2011, youth from IYJL and Nuestra Voz carried out the second Coming Out of the Shadows Day, in which they now stated after their name: I am undocumented, unafraid, and unapologetic, a term coined by Alaa Mukahhal, who used the word in a December 2010 action prior to the vote to convey that she would not apologize for being who she is or for her parents. When she came out in the March 2011 action, Mukahhal stated: “I will no longer live like this. I will not allow anyone to be ashamed. There is no shame in tears, no shame in dignity, no shame in pride. I with my head raised high can finally look at my parents in the eyes and tell them I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you.”29 Arianna Salgado, of Nuestra Voz, explained to me in an interview in June 2011 what she meant by “unapologetic”: “I am unapologetic because I am not sorry that my parents brought me here, and for being here and wanting to stay in this country.” Youth interviewed explained that the most difficult thing for them to tolerate during the advocacy was to hear politicians blame their parents, and that now, with no possibility of DREAM and nothing to lose, they had no reason to tolerate it. When I asked how she feels when she hears people blame her parents, Wences responded: 122 Family Activism I heard it from Durbin, from the media. From the president, from people on the phone, strangers. I hear it everywhere . . . before last year I really didn’t pay attention to it. I knew it was wrong but at the same time last year was so tied to the legislative calendar and all these people that we had no control over. It was something that we had to kind of like ignore. But after all that happened I had to laugh, like here we go again. There are so many jokes online, among undocumented people, organizers, that whenever we hear it and we tweet it and we go “ha ha ha there we go again.” But it is also very bitter. . . . We are using undocumented humor basically to deal with the fact that this hurts. And personally I get angry [pause] but at the same time I almost tell myself to not get angry. Because at this point I don’t know what we could do to get them to change their mind. Because even though we are trying to be more outspoken about “don’t blame our parents, don’t blame our parents,” we hear it everywhere. We are the only ones that are saying that. I do worry about whether the social movement is going to fizzle or actually be a sustainable thing because I see the divisions that have been created by policy makers and the government in terms of defining what a good immigrant looks like and what is not an immigrant, who should be allowed to stay here and who should leave.30 Salgado explained that one of the strategies youth have pursued is a plan to be careful about their language in any future coming out events. They did this, for example, by saying, “I came with my parents,” not “My parents brought me here.” Moreover, they have embraced the relational in a more public way. Since 2011 they have been staging actions and coming out events in which they emphasize their relationship with their parents, have parents or siblings together speak at events, and are developing their own relationship to the familial frame that had prevailed in the broader movement. Finally, while the youth still embrace America and Americanism, they tap into different ways of thinking and performing Americanism than the assimilationist modes discussed above. While they agree that their socialization and cultural formation make them as American as somebody born in the United States, they do not see it as something they need to prove or to earn, but that already is. In the IYJL blog, IYJL member David Ramirez stated in 2011 in a reflection on his exchange with a reporter: “I’m not even sure I feel comfortable with ‘immigrant.’ I was a year and half old when we moved to the United States. How is my brother, who was born in the United States only a bit after we had moved here, any more or less of an immigrant? I’ve spent all of the life I can remember in this spot, and I was raised by TV just as much as you were. How are you any more or less of an immigrant than me?”31 Additionally, they have tapped into different American values that are not about their productive potential but about their political potential by using Our Youth, Our Families 123 a political agency that Linda Bosniak (2008) explains is often denied to the undocumented. The youth have openly articulated the ways in which their coming out strategy was inspired by Harvey Milk and the gay liberation movement, and the civil disobedience strategy from the civil rights movement. While they do not see themselves as disconnected from the global struggles of immigrants, they use American social movements as their reference point. Other civil rights leaders have recognized their relationship to these traditions, and have granted them awards for their courage in the struggle. Another example of this recognition was evidenced in the warm reception that African American prisoners gave them when they were jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, after an act of civil disobedience in November 2011. The prisoners offered them the best beds and specifically mentioned that their actions had reminded them of the actions held in Alabama during the civil rights movement.32 They have made it clear that they are also unapologetic about assuming this agency, which they see not only as a strategic need but as their right. As Mukahhal explained in the second Coming Out of the Shadows Day on March 10, 2011: “We believe enough in the democratic system and we have faith enough in the democratic system to know that we can change it. And we know that we are Americans and that the only way to give back is to be allowed a path. I want the chance to be allowed a path.” The assumption of this agency, as Americans following in the footsteps of American activists, strays significantly from the image of passive victims waiting to be rescued from the crimes of their parents and to be deemed worthy of legalization. It is very different from the far more disciplined acts or scripted narratives that tapped into all the points the politicians were most likely to use to prove that the youth were worthy. Moreover, it reverses the order of responsibility by not putting the onus on the youth to prove that they are worthy, but on the state to prove that they are not. Since the acts of civil disobedience started, no youth who has participated in these actions has been deported, even when deportation proceedings have been initiated. This led one youth to comment shortly after the Georgia arrests in spring 2011 that it seemed like the best protection against being deported was to engage in civil disobedience. Revisiting the Family—A New Relational Strategy While questioning their own exceptionalism as DREAMers, rejecting the criminalization of their parents, and representing their struggle as intimately linked to American social movement ideologies, the most important postDREAM-vote shift I want to underscore is the way in which IYJL and other organizations have sought to link their own plight to others who lack their purported privilege, by challenging the use of exceptionalism in the exclusion and potential deportability of all the undocumented.33 Ways in which they do this 124 Family Activism include participation in campaigns to stop the deportation of immigrants (youth and nonyouth) who are not always ideal poster children, underscoring the humane reasons why they belong in the United States as much as anybody else. (They first did this in collaboration with DREAM Activist and NIYA; since early 2012, however, several youth organizations grouped under the umbrella organization Undocumented Illinois have created Organized Communities against Deportations [OCAD], a network that focuses on Illinois cases working with immigrants of all ages.) Another tactic is the use of acts of civil disobedience against deportations, most recently participating in the “Not One More Campaign,” organizing three local civil disobedience actions in 2013 and one in 2014 as well as engaging in civil disobedience against Secure Communities (2012), state laws in Arizona (2010) and Alabama (2012), and educational policies in Georgia (2011). A third important way in which the Chicago undocumented youth have changed direction is the introduction of a new family emphasis into their activism that is both novel for the youth and distinct from other ways in which family has been articulated in the movement and in policy. First, beyond not blaming their parents, they have begun to include them in their actions as a way of both highlighting their parents’ presence in their lives and support in their struggle (moving away from the individuation that hides the parent) but also as equally struggling for and deserving of recognition of their own belonging. In this way the parent acts as both a medium that links the youth to the larger, older undocumented community and as a representative of that community, which outside of the youth and a few workers’ movements or individual cases, such as Elvira Arellano’s, has not organized as undocumented. Perhaps IYJL member David Ramirez presaged this new turn of events in spring 2011 in an interview held after his release from custody for engaging in civil disobedience in Georgia: “If it had been my father he would have been deported.” With the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) discretion announced in summer 2012 (creating a process by which undocumented youth can apply to get a work permit and avoid deportation for at least a twoyear period), the youth responded in two ways. First, they continued to engage in civil disobedience even while realizing the new rules may have clipped their wings by minimizing their claim of risking deportability. Second, they upped the stakes by inviting their parents, who do not share their purported state protection, to engage in civil disobedience. The question then becomes whether the state will deport these parents or extend its protection of youth who engage in public civil disobedience to their parents. The first test occurred in Montgomery, Alabama, on November 15, 2011, where two parents of undocumented youth were arrested for engaging in civil disobedience along with the youth. One of the arrested parents was Martin Unzueta, the Our Youth, Our Families 125 undocumented father of IYJL founders Tania and Ireri Unzueta. Both parents were released two days later after paying fines and dealt with charges in February 2012, and ICE made no attempt to contact them or initiate deportation proceedings. Finally, on March 13, 2012, Martin Unzueta and Estela Cuellar, another undocumented parent of a Chicago-area youth who is a member of Nuestra Voz, came out as undocumented and unafraid in the first Coming Out of the Shadows action in DuPage County. They were the first parents in the nation to do so. In a personal interview with Martin Unzueta in March 2012 , he expressed hope that other undocumented parents who attended the DuPage event might become more active as they continue to organize more intensely in the movement, not autonomously but as needed by the youth and specifically mobilized as parents of the youth. Here is another way in which the relational subject, discussed in other chapters of this book, is deployed by new actors in novel ways, challenging the myth of the individualized deserving student who is somehow separated from his or her origins and relationships as a condition for his or her inclusion. The creation of DACA only justified even further the focus on parents and other older immigrants. Since the government’s deferred action memo was announced in June 2012, IYJL’s strategy has been to continue to pressure to stop the deportations of many people still detained and/or in deportation proceedings; to inform and educate on the memo and its limits while continuing to pressure for a DREAM Act or its equivalent; and to emphasize the parents and families as a next point of pressure once youth gain deferred status. The launching of the “undocubus” in August 2012, carrying over thirty undocumented immigrants from Arizona to the final destination of North Carolina for the Democratic National Convention (four of them IYJL members), also reflects this change. The undocubus carried older immigrants, emphasizing their status as workers, as well as youth and parents, some of them members of the same family. As it was actively organizing the undocubus, someone in IYJL wrote on its Facebook status report July 2012: In 2010 we started calling ourselves “undocumented, unafraid” as part of a campaign to pass the DREAM Act, but really as demand to be acknowledged as people with stories, hopes, dreams, and fears. Then we added “unapologetic” speaking from our experience about not blaming our parents, or apologizing for being here without documents. Little by little, we have seen others outside of undocumented youth begin to think about coming out of the shadows too, regardless of the risk. Now it is our parents, our aunts and uncles, our older relatives and friends who are also talking about being “undocumented & unafraid,” or “Sin papeles y sin miedo.” We are no longer the only ones who have to be unapologetic about our parents; they are speaking for themselves. 126 Family Activism It is important to note that the notion of family that the youth have articulated is different from the heteronormative, citizen-centered model displayed in the family campaigns discussed in chapter 3. This different way of articulating the family was exemplified on March 10, 2012, in the third Coming Out of the Shadows action at Daley Plaza. For the first time a young couple explicitly stated that they were coming out as an undocumented and unafraid family. Fanny Lopez, an undocumented member of the suburban youth organization LOYAL who had been arrested for engaging in civil disobedience protesting Secure Communities in August 2011, spoke of her fears and worries as the undocumented wife of a U.S. citizen veteran. While she qualified as a DREAMer, having been in the United States since childhood and being an exceptional student, Lopez was opting to emphasize her relationship as an undocumented spouse over her DREAM eligibility, revealing the actual intersectionality of these seemingly different identities and the inseparability of DREAM-eligible youth from their relationships with others. Her coming out placed undocumented youth squarely in this social imaginary of the family from which they had been excluded in the past. Her husband, David Martinez, spoke of his anguish while serving in Afghanistan of not knowing if his wife could be deported at any moment. In one poignant moment he stated: “Our love is no different than any undocumented love.” This statement represents a marked difference from the strategy adopted by LFLU, whose main claim, as members of mixed-status families, was the right of the undocumented who have citizen relatives to be recognized. Their imaginary excludes the entirely undocumented family. Martinez instead not only points to his second-class citizenship given that his wife’s status is extended to him (implied when he compares them to “any undocumented love”) but also includes the entirely undocumented couple in the social imaginary of those who suffer and deserve justice. While one could state that the two claims are simply different sides of the same coin or equation, it is an important political difference to stress one or the other. While LFLU focused on the special status of the mixed-status family to make a particular claim of exceptionalism, the Martinez family focused on undocumented love to claim that being of mixed status is actually no different than being an entirely undocumented couple. Instead of separating the undocumented from the mixed-status families, it places them in the same condition, challenging the exclusions and exceptional categorizations that have characterized the movement and the state’s relationship to immigrants’ claims. Relationships in one context are not better or more deserving than in the other case. They are both worthy and deserving, and they have both been devalued and threatened by current immigration policy. And relationships and the relational, it appears, will only continue to be emphasized in fundamental ways as the undocumented youth movement generates new ways of belonging Our Youth, Our Families 127 that simultaneously use but also challenge prevalent notions of their individual exceptionalism. Additionally, the use of the term “love,” and not “wife” or “husband,” marks the inclusion of nonheterosexual relationships. In stating “we are just like any other undocumented love,” Martinez was not only equating the undocumented and citizen, but the homosexual or bisexual or pansexual with the heterosexual. As Martinez made this statement, I could see Wences (who helped him finalize the statement) and Salgado, an undocumented queer couple who were very visibly moved, listening almost in tears as they stood together. Even if it was not the moment for the coming out of an undocumented GLBT couple or family, it was clear that Wences and Salgado felt included. Three months later, Wences came out as undocumented and queer in a stakeholder’s meeting at an ICIRR event, although that type of coming out has yet to occur at a mass public rally. As the “undocuqueer” identity becomes increasingly politicized and becomes a larger presence in the movement, a more open inclusion of undocuqueer voices within the larger movement (they are already very present and among the main leaders of IYJL as well as the national youth movement) and the related expansion and transformation of the “worthy” family seem imminent. Inhabiting the Exception and the Margins Two statements made by different IYJL members capture the two main themes of this chapter. Questioned by a reporter about why the youth were being given special consideration, David Ramirez stated: “We’re not cute. We’re organized. Our activism is the reason you believe the administration is easy on us.”34 Additionally, during the first Coming Out of the Shadows Day, Hugo Esparza stated upon coming out: “We’ve already won, for living under the radar has not kept us from living in love. But remember love is the starting line from which we will smash the radar and claim what is ours.”35 Taken together, the statements convey IYJL activists’ awareness of their agency and voice in creating their own movement, building their own power, emphasizing their humanity in its relational dimensions, and articulating their own reasons for their activism. They continue the path that Elvira Arellano initiated, claiming the right of the undocumented to speak and act. However, as this chapter has explained, they, along with all the other undocumented youth, have faced the challenge of creating a space of articulation in a policy context characterized by a form of neoliberal nationalism that reduces them to their economic and professional potential in a competitive global environment. In his immigration speech in El Paso in May 2011, President Obama attempted to appeal to a Latino audience to display his support for immigration reform while not delivering any concrete policy proposal. After only a brief mention of 128 Family Activism America not being a country that should break up families (with no accompanying narrative of a specific person or family), Obama ended his speech with a reflection on José the astronaut, a young man born in the United States (whose siblings were not, although their legal status is unclear), worked in the fields, studied hard, and eventually fulfilled his dream of going to space. José sounds like a perfect example of the neoliberal subject who, through education and hard work, achieves the American Dream. How was the story of a U.S.-born citizen used in a presidential speech to describe an immigrant story? How is this slippage possible? Why does the undocumented person, once again, get erased? Clearly, this focus on this nativeborn individual “dreamer” provides a broader racial appeal to all Latinos, and to those who aspire to the opportunities provided by education. It is hard not to cheer for José. But the problem with being a “dreamer” is that while it has broad appeal, it can also be easily and problematically appropriated. Everyone who “makes it” was a dreamer once. José’s success does nothing for the life chances of thousands of undocumented youth who cannot afford to study and, until DACA, were not allowed to work. And in this appropriation the undocumented youth and their stories, and, most important, their need for legal reform, are erased. This replacement exemplifies a serious disconnect between the actual structural conditions faced by DREAM-eligible youth and the continued ascent of the neoliberal frame utilized by state actors in the name of immigrants. The speech reproduces the myth of a self-reliant individual replete with human capital while completely ignoring the legal restrictions that allow citizens like José to fulfill their dreams while undocumented students cannot. How, then, can movement actors fit the stories of the undocumented within the framework of the American Dream, the historical immigrant origin of most Americans, and the increased need for competitive individuals in the global marketplace, and yet not disappear as individuals lacking status, members of families and communities, and actors claiming a political voice? How can they hold the state accountable for the legal obstacles that render them permanent dreamers, never astronauts? As Leisy Abrego (2011) has explained, while other immigrants’ success is shaped by the support of co-ethnics as well as the context of reception, for the undocumented it is primarily the context of reception—and within that, legal status—that most affects their opportunities. No amount of self-care, responsibility, brilliance, and talent can do the job of the state. The youth cannot legalize themselves. Within the movement the youth faced challenges as well. The DREAM/CIR debate was a contested and uncomfortable moment in the immigrant movement, as it pitted two policies in a way that posited the youth against families. But the reality, as usual, was far more complicated. There is clearly an overlap of these constituencies as the youth come from undocumented or mixed-status Our Youth, Our Families 129 families. Moreover, the difference between a family with younger children and a family with DREAM-eligible children is only a matter of years. In fact, since the DREAM bill had first been introduced, many formerly younger children have become DREAM-eligible, and many of the previously DREAM-eligible have aged out. Ultimately, as this chapter has explained, the continued empowerment and leadership of the youth ultimately won over the support of the rest of the movement for the DREAM vote and has led to continued collaboration since. The youth are no longer at the margins, but a central part of the movement, and are seen by many as its most imaginative agents. Post–December 2010 we can no longer speak of a DREAM/CIR division, but of a broader position that embraces both the youth and the family and is interlinking or supporting both issues and constituencies in novel ways. But this is not a narrative of simple transition from a neoliberal to a relational strategy. On the one hand, the CIR/DREAM debates and failure of DREAM in the Senate have led to significant reflection among the movement and the youth. New bridges have been built between the previously conflicting perspectives, as exemplified in Luis Gutierrez’s most recent Familias Unidas (FU) campaign (2011), which emphasized both family and youth. As described above, the youth have been actively challenging and attempting to reverse the criminalization of their parents and emphasizing the relational through their activism for the families. However, this neoliberal framework, so present in the hearings, speeches, and congressional debates, remains prevalent among political elites. To get any future version of the DREAM bill passed, the youth will still very much depend on this individualistic frame to obtain legalization. And in performing this exceptional innocent American, they render others unexceptional, ordinary, criminals, and non-American. Where, then, in this scenario lies the potential for this agency that undocumented youth have sought with such perseverance? Social theorists and social movement scholars have taken great care to point out the structural constraints of social activism, following in part Marx’s claim that people make history but not of their own choosing. Perhaps it lies precisely in the youth’s contemporaneous distinction and nondistinction from other undocumented immigrants, in the blurring of lines that they create between the performance of exceptionality and the reminder that undocumented immigrants are no different than citizens, in their straddling the neoliberal and the relational while questioning, challenging, and reinventing what is actually meant by exceptional, innocent, and American. In her discussion of undocumented migration, Mae Ngai (2004) makes the historical argument that illegality is constructed, as different lines have been drawn between legal and illegal migration in different periods. An analogous claim could be made about the lines being drawn among undocumented 130 Family Activism immigrants in the contemporary politics of legalization. With the possibility of a more general amnesty discarded, differentiation among the undocumented has become a basis for claims for legalization, as different groups try to demonstrate their worthiness. Groups advocating for the rights of citizen children have argued that parents of citizen children should be spared from deportation (a claim that, by definition, excluded undocumented immigrants who do not have citizen children). Likewise, bills proposing exceptions for agricultural workers have also been introduced. DREAM-eligible youth are another such category. Hence, while Nicholas De Genova (2005) is right to claim that deportability is what renders undocumented immigrants vulnerable, differentiation may mean that they are not equally deportable and therefore not equally vulnerable. More vulnerable groups include undocumented families with no citizen children; LGBT immigrants who are not married or whose marriage is not recognized by the federal government for immigration purposes; immigrants not eligible for the military; immigrants not able to study; and adults who have aged out of DREAM. The Obama administration’s order in August 2011 to allow prosecutorial discretion in deciding the cases of over 300,000 immigrants currently in deportation proceedings reinforces this differentiation logic, creating a number of specific categories describing cases that are most likely to receive prosecutorial discretion (although as individuals, not collective claims). Youth who have been in the United States since early childhood are high on the list. However, despite this under-enforced administrative order, none of these claims of differentiation has achieved the legalization sought. And despite DACA, which can be reversed by a future administration, undocumented youth, like the rest of the undocumented, continue to be in a state of liminality. In addition to claiming the relational, through family and community, they continue to point out the systemic conditions that block them from improving their life chances. No amount of study, talent, entrepreneurship, or self-care makes up for the consequences of their lack of legal status, a condition that renders them in the most important of ways no different than any other undocumented immigrant. When Arianna Salgado stands next to Illinois governor Pat Quinn and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel giving a moving speech prior to the signing of the Illinois DREAM Act (in August 2011) one week, and then two weeks later joins five other youth to get arrested and risk deportation in a civil disobedience action against Secure Communities, she is performing her exceptionality and marginality, claiming both her difference and similarity. Most important, she is claiming that her difference does not erase the most basic similarity she shares with all the undocumented or her relationship to that community. She is engaging in the tactic of crossing, blurring the line between the “deserving” youth and the “undeserving” older undocumented immigrant. Our Youth, Our Families 131 And here is where the relational serves to interrupt the neoliberal, and also why, in claiming that the youth do not care about families, Walter “Slim” Coleman gets it wrong. It is not that the youth did not care about families before, but that they were by necessity linking to a discourse that required individuation and differentiation to advocate for a bill that, however imperfect, appeared achievable at the time. Their multiple rallies, antideportation campaigns, and civil disobedience actions for families from 2011 to the present are not about proving that they now care for families, but to challenge this notion of differentiation based on individuation and to claim identification with other undocumented people who are and are not like them. Moreover, through the growing activism of parents as “undocuparents,” the “coming out” of a family that, while mixed-status, called itself undocumented, and the inclusion of parents in the undocubus that highlighted the plight of undocumented families, the youth are framing and performing the family in ways that challenge the divisions and categorizations of the state as well as other sectors of the immigrant movement. These changes, moreover, are not unique to IYJL, as integration of family and youth issues and the creation of multiple organizations of undocumented parents in the last two years have occurred throughout the nation.36 Once again, “family” became a site for the construction of political identities and strategies in which immigrant rights activists, and increasingly more undocumented activists, coalesce, negotiate, and articulate new directions and goals