There is no easy way to define undocumentedness and no single definition that stands true across the globe. In the words of Jose Antonio Vargas, “If there are an estimated 45 million immigrants living in America, then there are 45 million ways of being an immigrant in America. Like all groups, we are not a monolith.”[1] Of those forty-five million immigrants, and as per the Department of Homeland Security, eleven million immigrants currently residing in the United States are unauthorized.[2] Borrowing Jose Antonio Vargas’ logic, there are eleven million ways of being undocumented in the United States. Thus, to completely comprehend undocumentedness, and in the words of Federico Cuatlacuatl, one must consider undocumentedness a spectrum.[3] To understand the complexity of belonging to the undocumented community, the undoc+ spectrum and undocumented diaspora emerge to tease out undocumentedness. Individuals within the undoc+ spectrum have lived or are currently living undocumented, whereas individuals in the undocumented diaspora are directly or indirectly affected by undocumentedness but have not embodied undocumentedness themselves. Examples of the undoc+ spectrum are current or former undocumented individuals, while examples of individuals in the undocumented diaspora are children or partners of individuals in the undoc+ spectrum.
Speakers: Jackie Amezquita, MFA from UCLA. Federico Cuatlacuatl, MFA from Bowling Green State University. David Cuatlacuatl, MFA, from Pennsylvania State University. Francisco Donoso, BFA, from the State University of New York. Luis Fidencio Fifield-Perez, MFA, from the University of Iowa. Luis Alvaro Sahagun, MFA from the Northern Illinois University.
Keynote: Erika Hirugami, MA. MAAB.