Fighting the Stigma of "Illegality": The Identity Politics of Undocumented Youth

• In Event: Sociopolitical Context and Agency in Adolescence

Abstract

From the onset of his bid for the presidency, Trump described immigrants as rapists, druglords, and bad hombres, which conveyed the message that Mexicans are illegal. This flawed belief has a longstanding history. De Genova (2004) documented the history of U.S. immigration and argues that the foundation of “illegality” is in contrast to the hegemonic national identity of American-ness. This ideology disrupts the identity sense-making of new immigrants, who become immersed in a bicultural landscape and the literature on immigrant identity suggest variation in self-identification (Bejarano, 2005; Padilla & Perez, 2003; Solis, 2003). Via interviews with twelve undocumented Latinx students, this paper uncovers their identity sense-making process while specifically focusing on their identity politics around the stigma of their “illegality.”

Author

• Ana K. Soltero Lopez, Fresno State University