New Books In Critical Theory

Undocumented youth activists are at the forefront of the present-day immigrant rights movement. This is especially true surrounding the activism of the recent SCOTUS decision on DACA issued on June 18, 2020. Professor Kevin Escudero’s book, Organizing While Undocumented: Immigrant Youth’s Political Activism Under the Law (New York University Press, 2020), depicts just how undocumented immigrant youth have utilized their identities for political action between 2010-2019. By developing what he calls the “Identity Mobilization Model,” Escudero studies the intersectional collective identity formation of undocumented immigrant communities by focusing on how micro-level processes interact with macro-level legal structures.   Escudero uses intimate narrative accounts of individual experiences, community gatherings, and organizer meetings to show how undocumented immigrant youth activists emphasized the heterogeneity of the movement while also forming coalitions with other movements. Escudero drew on ethnographic par