Making the Road by Walking

• In Event: Democracy and Organization in the American Context

Abstract

The immigrant justice movement (IJM) is one of the most vibrant social movements in the contemporary U.S. From hunger strikes inside detention centers to civil disobedience led by undocumented immigrants, the IJM is consistently challenging the economic exploitation and social marginalization enacted by U.S. immigration laws along lines of race and class. This paper will highlight one critique enacted by the movement: the limitations of American liberalism and democracy. Through in-depth case studies of two immigrant justice organizations (IJOs), the paper will reveal the illiberal, antidemocratic structures that “illegalized” immigrants encounter in the U.S., including exploitative employers, opaque bureaucracies, and inhumane immigration prisons.
These structures, I will argue, reveal the connections between American imperialism abroad and racial subjugation at home; as migrants from Latin America are forced to travel north, they encounter repeated, interconnected forms of exploitation and violence. At the same time, however, these immigrants are bringing with them new social movement repertoires, imaginaries, and analyses, synthesizing their political experiences in Latin America and the U.S. to create a cogent political imaginary of the Americas. In effect, despite their exclusion, they are transforming the U.S. into a truly accountable and just democracy.

Author

• Ramon Garibaldo Valdez, University of Chicago