Sep 22
A Public Lecture and Reception: Dr. Rafael A. Martinez
You are invited to a public lecture by Dr. Rafael A. Martinez, author of the book, Illegalized: Situating Undocumented Youth Movements - University of Arizona, 2024.
The book takes readers on a journey through the rise of Undocumented Youth Social Movements in the U.S. through the twenty-first century. The book follows the documentation trail of undocumented youth activists spanning over two decades of organizing. Each chapter carefully analyzes key organizing strategies and direct forms of activism that undocumented youth use to expose and critique repressive forms of state control and violence. This inquiry is particularly generative about how immigrant bodies are erased, contained, and imagined as ‘aliens’ or ‘illegal.’ Illegalized shows that undocumented youth and their activism represent a disruption to the social imaginary of the U.S. nation-state and its figurative and physical borders.
BIO:
Rafael A. Martínez self-identifies as an undocuscholar, which he defines as: individuals who are conducting research, writing, documenting, producing artwork, and developing public projects from the lived experiences of being undocumented or formerly undocumented. At Arizona State University (ASU) he is an assistant professor of Southwest Borderlands and the Co-Director of the newly launched, Latinx Oral History Lab. Dr. Martínez’s work focuses on immigrant rights, mixed-status families, and Latinx cultural and historical productions in the southwest borderlands. Dr. Martínez’s book with the University of Arizona Press, Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States, analyzes the rise of Undocumented Youth Social Movements in the U.S. and immigrant youth’s contributions to the broader Immigrant Rights Movements.