Political Protest and Undocumented Immigrant Youth: (Re-) framing Testimonio

Description

What does it mean to be a young undocumented immigrant? Current public debate on undocumented immigration provokes discussion worldwide, and it is estimated that there are more than 11.1 million undocumented immigrants in the US, yet what it really means to be an undocumented immigrant appears less explicitly delineated in the debate. This interdisciplinary volume applies theories from Media, Cultural, and Literary Studies to investigate how undocumented immigrant youth in the United States have claimed a public voice by publishing their video narratives on YouTube. Case studies show how political protest significantly shapes these videos as activists narrate and perform their ‘dispossession’, redefining their understanding of the mechanisms of immigration in the Americas, and of home, belonging, and identity. The impact of the videos is explored as the activists connect them to Congressional bills and present their activities as a continuation of the legacy of the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students involved in debates on migration, communication, new media, culture, protest movements and political lobbying. Cover Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Figures and Tables Preface Acknowledgements 1: Introduction: Digital Narratives of Undocumented Immigrant Youth 1. On being ‘Unauthorized’ 2. Waking the ‘Sleeping Giant’: The Immigrant Rights Movement in 2006 3. Mediatizing Politics: Testimonial Storytelling Online 4. (Digital) Testimonio – A Literature of Combat 5. Research Questions and Outline of Study References 2: The Movement, Politics, and Media Logic in YouTube Narratives of Undocumented Youth 1. Politics of the Immigrant Rights Movement Since 2006 1.1. Social Movement, Contention, and Public Sphere(s) 1.2. Historical Legacy and Politics of the Movement 1.3. The Public Face: Leadership in the Movement 2. Online Repertoires of Contention: Political Uses of the Internet in the Immigrant Youth Justice League 3. Storytelling Format on YouTube: Media Logic as Grounds for Selection References 3: Reframing Testimonio: Mediatizing Political Storytelling on YouTube 1. Testimonio: Narrating Resistance 2. Reframing Testimonio: the Mediatization of Storytelling and the Digital Testimonio on YouTube 2.1. Digital Testimonio vs. Storytelling 2.2. Media Logic and Testimonio: Negotiating ‘Public Spaces’ on YouTube 2.3. Medium-Conscious Narratology: Multi-, Intermediality, and Multimodality 2.4. Multimodal ‘Design’ of Digital Testimonios of Undocumented Youth References 4: Stories of the Dispossessed 1. Introduction 2. Framing Experience of Dispossession: the Core Story in Digital Testimonios 3. A Claim to Butler and Athanasiou’s “Dispossession” 3.1. “Dispossession” 3.2. Dispossession of Citizenship Rights: Exclusion vs. Belonging 4. Core Stories of Dispossession in Digital Testimonios of Undocumented Youth 4.1. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Stephanie Solis, “Lost & Found (Story of a DREAM Act Student)” Published: 12 May 2009 4.2. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Mohammad Abdollahi, “My name is Mohammad and I am undocumented” Published: 19 March 2010 4.3. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Carlos Roa, “The Story of an Undocumented Student”. Published: 21 July 2010 4.4. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of David Ramirez, “David Ramirez, Immigrant Youth Justice League”. Published: 5 April 2011 4.5. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Angelica Velazquillo, “An Undocumented Immigrant, Angelica, Tells Her Story”. Published: 2 March 2012 4.6. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Mitzy Calderón, “I am No Longer Hiding! I am no Longer Afraid!”. Published: 13 November 2012 4.7. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Ivette Roman, “Maryland’s Undocumented Immigrant Students”. Published: 5 January 2013 4.8. Core Story: Digital Testimonio of Luis Maldonado, “A Brief Look into the Life of an Undocumented American”. Published: 20 September 2013 5. The Performative in Dispossession: Dispossessed Bodies in the Digital Sphere References 5: Visual Dispossession(s) and the Dynamics of the Performative: Moving Image 1. Introduction: Face-to-Face Testimonio – On Screen! 2. Visualizing Dispossession 2.1. Gestures for Resistance 2.2. Marking the Dispossessed: Abstract Pointing 3. Facial Expressions: Personal Affect and Resistance to Dispossession 3.1. Narrative Time and Personal Affect 3.2. Irony and Resistance 4. Occupying Space 4.1. Bodily Movement and Posture 4.2. The Everyday Struggle: from the Private to the Public Setting 4.3. Performing Props: Symbolic Objects in Moving Images 5. The Other Narrator: Framing Narrative Through Montage and Zooming References 6: Activism in Soundscape: Voice, Noises, and Music in Digital Narratives 1. Introduction: Orality, Sound, and the Performance of Resistance in Digital Testimonios 2. Connecting Traditions: Collective Ritual in Digital Testimonios 3. A voice for All? 3.1. The Appropriation of Voice: Naming 3.2. ‘Undocu-Queer’ Performances 4. Paraverbal Features: Identities in Change 4.1. Speech Tempo, Loudness, and Pitch 4.2. Dramatic Silences 4.3. Acoustic Space 5. The Sound of Music: Extra-Diegetic Instrumental Music References 7: Intermedial Spaces: Written Language, Static Image, and Props 1. Introduction: Commonalities 2. Captions 2.1. Written Interpellations: Digital Testimonio as Interview 2.2. Meta-Functions in Captions and Links 2.3. The Other Narrator: Ideational Functions and Framing 3. Rearranging Space: Written Language on Props and Static Images 4. Photos: Personalizing Dispossession 4.1. The Immigrant Story in Photographs 4.2. Illustrating Dispossession, and the Performative of Static Images References 8: Conclusions 1. Multimodal Performances of Dispossession 1.1. Enacting Dispossession 1.2. From Dispossession to ‘Possession’: Performance as Resistance 1.3. Testimonial Storytelling and Collectivity on YouTub 1.4. Mediatizing Public Space for YouTube: ‘New form of Politics’ 2. Mediatization of Politics – A Voice to Undocumented Youth References Index