Introduction

In the early 2000s the undocumented youth movement emerged on to the scene in the US to campaign for the rights of undocumented young people, like Set, who had migrated there as children. The movement initially began as a campaign for a pathway to citizenship for a subset of academically successful undocumented young people. However, since 2010, and particularly after 2012, there was a shift in the messaging and priorities as the movement became more autonomous and more inclusive of the wider undocumented community. This chapter draws on qualitative interviews and participant observation conducted during two studies, in 2015 and 2017, with members of the undocumented youth movement in Southern California (see Chapter One). This is discussed alongside an analysis of speeches by the then-President Obama about the administrative relief known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Continuing with the theme of compassion in resistance, this chapter traces how the movement's use of storytelling as testimony evolved over time.

In the earlier years of the movement, young people's testimonies were constructed to be understood and empathised with by US citizens and the political establishment. As discussed in Chapter Four, testifiers are sometimes unable to present their experiences in the terms they would prefer because these would not appeal to those being addressed (Wright, 2009). This was problematic for undocumented young people who had to repress or alter aspects of their identities and experiences. These testimonies also reinforced the exclusion of others who could not enact the conditionalities needed to be recognised as ‘deserving’. However, as the movement became increasingly youth-led, this began to change as dissenting and previously excluded narratives from within and beyond the movement were listened to and engaged with.