Documenting the Undocumented

Latino/a Narratives and Social Justice in the Era of Operation Gatekeeper

Marta Caminero-Santangelo

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780813063362
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Literature

Looking at the work of Junot Díaz, Cristina García, Julia Alvarez, and other Latino/a authors who are U.S. citizens, Marta Caminero-Santangelo examines how writers are increasingly expressing their solidarity with undocumented immigrants. Through storytelling, these writers create community and a sense of peoplehood that includes non-citizen Latino/as. This volume also foregrounds the narratives of unauthorized migrants themselves, showing how their stories are emerging into the public sphere. Immigration and citizenship are multifaceted issues, and the voices are myriad. They challenge common interpretations of "illegal" immigration, explore inevitable traumas and ethical dilemmas, protest their own silencing in immigration debates, and even capitalize on the topic for the commercial market. Yet these texts all seek to affect political discourse by advancing the possibility of empathy across lines of ethnicity and citizenship status. As border enforcement strategies escalate along with political rhetoric, detentions, and deaths, these counternarratives are more significant than ever before, and their perspectives cannot be ignored. What we are witnessing, argues Caminero-Santangelo, is a mass mobilization of stories. This growing body of literature is critical to understanding not only the Latino/a immigrant experience but also alternative visions of nation and belonging.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Narrating the Non-Nation: Literary Journalism and “Illegal” Border Crossings
• 2. The Lost Ones: Post-Gatekeeper Border Fictions and the Construction of Cultural Trauma
• 3. The Caribbean Difference: Imagining Trans-Status Communities
• 4. Selling the Undocumented: Life Narratives of Unauthorized Immigrants
• 5. Unauthorized Plots: Life Writing, Transnationalism, and the Possibilities of Agency
• 6. Undocumented Testimony: American DREAMers
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index