‘The World We Should Be Working Towards’: Radical Imagination, Identity, and Decoloniality in Undocumented Organizing

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Race, Identity And Temporality In Decolonial Education

Abstract

In times of escalating anti-immigrant violence, this qualitative study examines how undocumented organizers across the United States reimagine futures through organizing as a praxis that disrupts legality. Through mutual aid, collective care, and interdependence, organizers cultivate relational power that sustains community survival. Centering undocumented organizers as knowledge producers, this research frames organizing as a radical site of learning, identity transformation, relationality, and politicized strategy. Participants reflect on rejecting the “good immigrant” narrative and embracing belonging beyond the nation-state. Extending scholarship on undocumented youth movements, this paper advances organizing as meeting immediate needs and a visionary pedagogy rooted in decoloniality. This study calls educators to learn from movements building the world we need, rooted in dignity, autonomy, and radical imagination.

Author

• Alejandra Pérez, University of Washington