Localized political contexts

Abstract

Drawing on research spanning ten years in three immigrant destinations—Los Angeles, Denver, and Atlanta—this chapter asks the question, “How do political contexts shape undocumented youth movements among Latino students?” To probe the answers, we bring into dialogue social movements and immigration scholarship to build a framework for understanding undocumented youth activism. Drawing on political opportunity theory in social movement research and segmented assimilation theory in migration studies, we advance the notion of localized political contexts. These are settings, typically defined by metropolitan area, where one finds different levels of antagonism and accommodation toward immigrants, which we see as shaping the emergence and character of undocumented youth movements. This chapter presents evidence that variegated political, legal, and discursive landscapes shape undocumented activism in three ways: (1) the claims that are made; (2) the targets for these claims; and (3) the strategies and tactics the movement adopts. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of undocumented youth movements and updates their prospects given the increasingly hostile political context unfolding at the national level in the U.S.