Doctoral Dissertation Research: Rights Mobilization, Citizenship and Identity

权利动员文献表明，伤害的高风险通常会抑制社会运动激进主义，但对于动员起来进行社会变革的无证青年来说，情况似乎并非如此。为了从理论上理解是什么允许这些年轻人不顾面临的威胁而组织起来，这项研究探索了无证亚裔和拉丁裔/o青年倡导移民改革的社会运动激进主义。基于两年来对三个社区组织的深入访谈和参与者观察，提出了法律动员的理论模型，并对其进行了检验。关于移民和移民权利的国家格局的最新发展表明，需要了解边缘化人口成员的法律动员的内部运作，以及这种激进主义如何与处境相似的群体成员对动员的传统理解相关联或无关。

The rights mobilization literature suggests that a high risk of harm generally inhibits social movement activism, yet this does not appear to be the case for undocumented youth who have mobilized for social change. To understand theoretically what has allowed these youth to organize despite the threats they confront, this research explores the social movement activism of undocumented Asian and Latina/o youth advocating for immigration reform. A theoretic model of legal mobilization is proposed and tested based on data gathered from in-depth interviews and participant observation of three community-based organizations over a period of two years. Recent developments in the national landscape regarding immigration and immigrant rights point to the need for an understanding of the inner workings of legal mobilization among members of marginalized populations, and how such activism does or does not relate to conventional understandings of mobilization among members of similarly situated groups.