The Undocumented Everyday: Migrant Lives and the Politics of Visibility

389 Pages·2018·3.76 MB·English

by  Rebecca M. Schreiber

The Undocumented Everyday
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The Undocumented Everyday
Migrant Lives and the Politics of Visibility
Rebecca M. Schreiber
U N I V E R S I T Y O F M I N N E S O T A P R E S S
M I N N E A P O l I S l O N d O N
Portions of chapter 1 were previously published in “The Labors of Looking:
Unseenamerica and the Visual Economy of Work,” American Quarterly 56,
no. 4 (December 2004): 1035–5 0; copyright 2004 by The American Studies
Association; reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Portions of chapter 5 were previously published in “Confronting Regimes of
Legality in ‘Sanctuary City/Ciudad Santuario, 1989–2 009,’” Radical History
Review, special issue, “Calling the Law into Question: Confronting the Illegal
and Illicit in Public Arenas” 113 (Spring 2012). Portions of chapter 6 were
previously published in “Reconfguring Documentation: Immigration,
Activism, and Practices of Visibility,” in The Latina/o Midwest Reader, edited by
Claire F. Fox, Santiago Vaquera-V ásquez, and Omar Valerio-J iménez
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017).
Copyright 2018 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
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Minneapolis, MN 55401–2 520
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Printed in the United States of America on acid-f ree paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-o pportunity educator and employer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schreiber, Rebecca Mina, author.
Title: The undocumented everyday : migrant lives and the politics of visibility /
Rebecca M. Schreiber.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifers: lccn 2017042813 | isbn 978-1-5179-0023-6 (pb) | isbn 978-1-5179-0022-9 (hc)
Subjects: lcsh: Illegal aliens–Political activity–United States. | Mexican Americans–Political
activity. | Central America Americans–Political activity. | United States–Emigration and
immigration–Government policy. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / Hispanic
American Studies. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration and Immigration. | SOCIAL SCIENCE /
Poverty and Homelessness.
Classification: lcc jv6483 .s28 2018 | ddc 325.73–dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042813
UMP BmB 2018
Contents
Acronyms vii
Preface ix
I ntroduction Migrant Lives and the Promise of
Documentation 1
Part I. Ordinary Identifcations and Unseen America
1 “ We See What We Know”: Migrant Labor and the
Place of Pictures 41
2 T he Border’s Frame: Between Poughkeepsie and
La Ciénega 79
Part II. documentary, Self-R epresentation, and
“Collaborations” in the U.S.–M exico Borderlands
3 V isible Frictions: The Border Film Project and the
“Spectacle of Surveillance” 119
4 R efusing Disposability: Representational Strategies in
Maquilápolis: City of Factories 159
Part III. Counter-O ptics: disruptions in the Field of the Visible
5 D isappearance and Counter-S pectacle in Sanctuary
City/Ciudad Santuario, 1989–2 009 195
6 R econfguring Documentation: Mobility,
Counter-V isibility, and (Un)Documented Activism 233
Conclusion Counter-R epresentational Acts 271
Acknowledgments 277
Notes 283
Index 353
Acronyms
CAFTA-D R C entral America–D ominican Republic Free Trade
Agreement
COMO C entro de Orientación de la Mujer Obrera
DACA D eferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
DAPA D eferred Action for Parents of Americans and
Lawful Permanent Residents
DHS D epartment of Homeland Security
DOJ D epartment of Justice
DOL D epartment of Labor
DREAM Act D evelopment, Relief, and Education for Alien
Minors Act
FAIR F ederation for American Immigration Reform
HRHCare H udson River HealthCare
ICE I mmigration and Customs Enforcement
IIRIRA I llegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act
INS I mmigration and Naturalization Service
IRCA I mmigration Reform and Control Act
IYJL I mmigrant Youth Justice League
vii
viii Acronyms
MALDEF M exican American Legal Defense and Education
Fund
NAFTA N orth American Free Trade Agreement
NDLON N ational Day Labor Organizing Network
NFOP National Fugitive Operations Program
NIYA N ational Immigrant Youth Alliance
1199SEIU L ocal 1199 Service Employees International
Union
PEP P riority Enforcement Program
PRWORA P ersonal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act
SB 1070 A rizona Senate Bill 1070 (Support Our Law
Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act)
S-C OMM S ecure Communities Program
USA PATRIOT Act U niting and Strengthening America by Providing
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism Act
USCCR U .S. Commission on Civil Rights
Preface
I began work on this project in 2003, as labor– community coalitions
were starting to organize the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride (IWFR)
to protest the U.S. federal government’s inaction on comprehensive
immigration reform. As part of the IWFR, close to one thousand migrant
workers and their allies rode buses originating from nine U.S. cities,
meeting up in Washington, D.C., and then traveling to join one of the
largest immigrant rights rallies in history held in New York City on Octo-
ber 2, 2003.1 This event was organized following the passing of laws
after 9/11, including the USA PATRIOT Act, which criminalized un-
documented migrants.2 It was in this context that the Freedom Ride par-
ticipants “manifested their political message and defantly asserted their
subjectivity,” by what Nicholas De Genova contends was “their physical
and bodily presence.”3 De Genova argues that the “migrant Freedom Rid-
ers not only moved ‘the question of the speaking subject front and centre,’
but also provoked a kind of dialogue that was above all about the ques-
tion of the moving subject—m igrant subjectivities manifested through
the insubordinate mobility of their bodies.”4 In his analysis of the IWFR,
De Genova emphasizes migrant subjectivity, presence, and mobility, which
relate to the organizers’ interest in involving migrant activists in docu-
mentary projects of self-r epresentation, including “Unseen America.”
In early 2003, the sta¤ of Bread and Roses Cultural Project, then the
cultural arm of Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union
ix