“A lot of people there were undocumented, or at least looked like me”: illegality, visibility and vulnerability among immigrant young adults in Florida

ABSTRACT

Contemporary migration studies in cultural geography emphasize place-based approaches, recognizing the relational and contextual nature of belonging, especially as these are nested within material and symbolic structures of racial inequality. This article highlights the role of precarious legal status, focusing on undocumented immigrant young adults who grew up in the United States, to examine subjective experiences of place-making and belonging in situations of heightened visibility, deportability and vulnerability. We analyze 56 interviews with undocumented immigrant young adults, predominantly from Latin America, collected in Central Florida. Findings focus on themes linked to shared experiences of vulnerability due to illegality and visibility: (1) belonging in co-ethnic/co-legal neighborhoods, (2) ethnic and racial tensions, (3) neighborhood (in)security and safety, and (4) mutual assistantance and support among neighbors. In addition to poverty, poor infrastructure, and lack of safety, many neighborhoods in which undocumented youth grow up are characterized by racial and ethnic divisions. Our findings contribute an analysis of how undocumented migrants experience place as intersecting with broader patterns of race and ethnicity, and point to the importance of “co-legal status”. This extension of the concept of co-ethnicity references shared experience of illegality as it relates to place-making for legally precarious individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Undocumented immigrants
• illegality
• race
• immigrant belonging
• place-making

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science Foundation, Grant Number 1729396.

Notes on contributors

Heide Castañeda

Heide Castañeda is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her research areas include critical border studies, political and legal anthropology, migration, and citizenship, focusing on the U.S./Mexico border, Mexico, Germany, and Morocco. She is the author of Migration and Health: Critical Perspectives (Routledge, 2023), Borders of Belonging: Struggle and Solidarity in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families (Stanford University Press, 2019) and Unequal Coverage: The Experience of Health Care Reform in the United States (NYU Press, 2018).

Melanie Escue

Melanie Escue is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Her research interests include undocumented migration, Puerto Rican studies, post-disaster migration, and emotional well-being. Currently, her work explores the emotional well-being of undocumented young adults as they navigate transitions to adulthood in the United States.

Elizabeth Aranda

Elizabeth Aranda is Professor of Sociology at the University of South Florida. Her work focuses on emotional adaptation among Puerto Rican and other Latin American and Caribbean immigrants, as well as undocumented populations. Her research also examines the racialization of Latinos/as in the United States. She is author of Emotional Bridges to Puerto Rico: Migration, Return Migration, and the Struggles of Incorporation (Rowman & Littlefield 2007), and co-author of Making a Life in Multiethnic Miami: Immigration and the Rise of a Global City (Lynne Rienner 2014).