Organizing While Undocumented

Immigrant Youth’s Political Activism under the Law

by Kevin Escudero

Finalist, 2020 C. Wright Mills Award, given by the Society for the Study of Social Problems

Honorable Mention, 2021 Asian America Section Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association

An inspiring look inside immigrant youth’s political activism in perilous times. 

Undocumented immigrants in the United States who engage in social activism do so at great risk: the threat of deportation. In Organizing While Undocumented, Kevin Escudero shows why and how―despite this risk―many of them bravely continue to fight on the front lines for their rights.

Drawing on more than five years of research, including interviews with undocumented youth organizers, Escudero focuses on the movement’s epicenters―San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City―to explain the impressive political success of the undocumented immigrant community. He shows how their identities as undocumented immigrants, but also as queer individuals, people of color, and women, connect their efforts to broader social justice struggles today.

A timely, worthwhile read, Organizing While Undocumented gives us a look at inspiring triumphs, as well as the inevitable perils, of political activism in precarious times.

Paperback | 208 pages | NYU Press | 2020

Kevin Escudero is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies at Brown University.