Disabled and Undocumented: In/Visibility at the Borders of Presence, Disclosure, and Nation

ABSTRACT

Attention to disability and undocumented status illuminates the impact of in/visibility on multiply marginalized individuals. Visibility can prove dangerous for vulnerable populations exposed to physical and symbolic violence; yet invisibility also poses risks. Nevertheless, visibility and invisibility can also be useful rhetorical schemes. Here, I focus on branding and non/images to interrogate this ambivalence in the case of Rosa Maria Hernandez, a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy brought to the United States when she was three months old, and that of Eva Chavez, an undocumented activist whose defense campaign publicized her role as primary caretaker of her 11-year-old disabled citizen son. These cases show that, for targeted people, in/visibility is gradated, compulsory, and tactical, producing presence and belonging relative to exposure and risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Branding
• disability
• im/migration
• in/visibility
• non/image

Notes

¹ This essay was composed on Akokisa/Orcoquisa and Karankawa territories.

² I use the term “tactical” rather than “strategic” when referring to undocumented people’s rhetorical practices to deliberately invoke the distinction between schemes deployed from a place of power and those used by people in positions of vulnerability (de Certeau).

³ Except when in reference to national agencies, I use the terms “im/migration” and “im/migrant” to mean “those who have been labeled immigrant, migrant, and refugee, including the undocumented” (Arzubiaga et al. 246) whose movements are constrained by political, social, and economic forces, and to acknowledge migration across the continent as a fundamental human right.

⁴ At the time of this writing, the Trump administration is attempting to further limit immigration applications under the “public charge” rule, which excludes im/migrants with low incomes if they have used public benefits previously or are likely to do so again.

⁵ A 2016 report finds that undocumented people living in the United States contribute an estimated $11.64 billion a year in local and state taxes, or 8% of their incomes compared to 5.4% by citizens (Gee et al.).