Graduate Works in Progress: Undocu-Activists In/Visibility as Social & Political Resistance

ABSTRACT
Political discourse in the U.S. has hyper-visualized undocumented people. This pushes Americans to see immigration as a pressing problem that needs solving. This approach has invisibilized undocumented people, voices, and existence. Conversations occur around Undocumented immigrants and not with Undocumented immigrants. United States citizens' “allies” have been heightened while the experiences of Undocu-Activists and Undocumented Peoples are buried in the rhetoric of the universalized experience of being targeted as Black and Brown peoples. Questioning how solidarity is viable for those with the least risk and the biggest platforms. Everyone has something to say about immigration, and very few are actively working with those who have lived experience of forced displacement, illegality, detainment, and even those who have been involuntarily removed from the U.S. I seek to bridge this disconnect with Undocumented knowledge through acompañamiento to make sense of how Undocu-Activists and Undocumented Peoples take up contemporary immigration justice through enacting moments of in/visibilizing as possibility. In/visibility is a political tool of resistance under a surveillance state to imagine the futures of those without recognized legal status. Undocu-Activists co-conspire to ensure that the pleasures and joys among Undocu-communities are not disrupted as they self-invisibilize to avoid detection or what many fear: further separation and removal from Home.

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The Graduate Colloquium Works In Progress Speaker Series pairs a 30-minute graduate-student work-in-progress or conference-style talk with 30 minutes of questions, discussion, and feedback. All pre-candidacy graduate students will present during the 2026–27 academic year. To see the full calendar of WGSS Works in Progress Talks visit go.umd.edu/wgsswip27