’Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements,’ a book talk with Dr. Rafael Martínez

llegalized: Situating Undocumented Youth Movements takes readers on a journey through the history of 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 used by undocumented youth to produce direct forms of activism that exposed and critiqued repressive forms of state control and violence. This inquiry is particularly generative in relation to 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.

Rafael Martínez is an Assistant Professor of Southwest Borderlands in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts. At ASU, he teaches courses on the American Southwest, Arizona History, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and Transborder Chicano Literature. Rafael is also a Program Faculty for the MA Narrative Studies program in CISA. Rafael’s work focuses on immigration, migration, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and the American Southwest. 

Rafael is engaged in public projects that seek to connect academic work with community development. As such, he has focused considerable efforts in exploring the historical contributions of Latinx and ethnic communities in Phoenix’s East Valley. In 2023, Rafael completed a project, Querencia: Voices from Chandler’s Latinx Barrios, where he collected the oral histories of Latinx community members across Chandler’s historical barrios and contemporary immigrant neighborhoods. The project’s success culminated in an exhibit and digital archive of the oral histories with the Chandler Museum. For his research and work in public history, Rafael was awarded the Dr. Manuel Servin Faculty Award by the Chicano/Latino Faculty Staff Association (CLFSA) and the Líderes Under 40 Award by the Los DBacks Organization.

This event is open to all USF community members. Light refreshments will be served. Contact rhetoricandlanguage@usfca.edu for questions.