Illegalized

This week’s review focuses on undocumented youth activism, underlining the struggles and experiences of young immigrants in the United States.

Posted on June 16, 2025 in Reviews of the Month

Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States

Martínez, Rafael A. Arizona, 2024
240p bibl index, 9780816548644 $100.00, 9780816548637 $30.00, 9780816548651 $30.00

Illegalized: Undocumented Youth Movements in the United States book cover.

In this timely, powerful analysis, Martínez (Arizona State Univ.) seeks to illustrate how “undocumented youth organizers [produce] new records that move state violence out of the shadows and into the public realm” (p. 14), ultimately forming new identities through their organizing as they “move away from identifiers … related to ‘good immigrant’ narratives” (p. 13). Drawing on an array of physical and digital archives produced by undocumented activists’ organizing efforts, intermingled with reflections on his own lived experience as an undocumented youth, Martínez effectively captures the realities facing undocumented youth in the US, as well as the forces governing immigrants’ rights and everyday experiences. This book should be required reading for those conducting research in immigration studies, ethnic/minority studies, political science, and criminal justice, as well as anyone interested in better understanding the historical and ideological factors impacting immigration, anti-immigrant movements, and undocumented youth movements. It is particularly important in the present with anti-immigrant sentiments on the rise.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.
Reviewer: M. G. Urbina, Sul Ross State University
Interdisciplinary Subjects: Latin American & Latina/o Studies, Racial Justice
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences
Choice Issue: May 2025

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