How Unsettled Im/migrants Lead, Steer, and Make Stable a Nation: Queer and Undocumented Resistance Against Ableist Settler State

• In Event: Beyond Settler Nations: Sites and Relations of Indigenous Im/migrant Solidarity 

Abstract

This paper comparatively examines how U.S. citizenship sustains settler colonial and imperial expansion at the intersections of im/migration, empire studies, and critical disability studies. I turn to Stephanie Soultree Camba’s song “Stolen Lands” to argue that colonial mechanisms of inclusion and sovereignty debilitate and disable im/migrant people. In particular, I situate Camba’s personal history as a queer and undocumented Marshallese-Filipinx to highlight how transpacific ontologies inform a critical approach to land and belonging in the U.S. In the song, we learn not only how colonialism has impacted their family and their relationship to this world but how they are resisting trans-imperial and setter colonial power structures. Through what I call the epistemology of the unsettled, the paper highlights the limits and possibilities of bringing together disability and im/migrant discourse through a settler colonial framework and queer theory. Finally, this paper proposes care as a listening practice to address violent and contradicting functions of ableist settler colonial nation.

Author

• Keish Eun Jin Kim, Rutgers University