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Nicholas Flores - Master's Thesis.pdf (1.46 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

DREAMing the “Right” Way: The Cultural Politics of the DREAM Act and UndocuQueer Social Movements

Flores , Nicholas
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429038667

Abstract Details

2015, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
This thesis explores the cultural politics of immigration in the United States by identifying the possibilities and limitations for social and political change within a legal and historical context, as well as the organizing around the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act movement today. I argue that the online visibility and recognition of one such group, the UndocuQueers, reimagines and reworks current discourses, practices, and debates surrounding immigration. In the first section I take my cue from “queer migration” scholarship, which focuses on the plight of queer immigrants domestically. Delimiting the analysis to a United States context, this section revisits and critically elaborates scholarship by legal and non-legal scholars on past implementations and federal court decisions whose direct bearing and precedent function in racial formation, in gender binarizing, and in normalizing the sexuality of queer migrant bodies today. The second, final chapter reorients the thesis to our present historical conjuncture from 2001 to the present and explores the attendant legal battles over so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” and DREAM Activism. That is, “performing” undocumented status and queer affinity, the UndocuQueers work across, over, and beyond the discursive and material terrains on which their presence receive uneven considerations. I argue that status options of queer undocumented youth reveal current migration discussions’ limitations, from “conservative” and “liberal” standpoints alike, because they rely on formal notions of citizenship, national belonging, and inclusion. My project demonstrates how orienting our analysis to the UndocuQueers highlights the tensions between the complicity and contradictions deeply embedded in the “problem-space” or “problematic” of migration today. In particular, I show how queer migrant youth of color forge claims to intelligibility and new modes of self-imagining through their narrative accounts and cultural productions. While “representation” is key to UndocuQueers forging claims to intelligibility, I conclude the thesis with a cautionary note on the politics of visibility.
Maurice Stevens (Advisor)
Barry Shank (Committee Member)
Ana Elena Puga (Committee Member)
68 p.
Comparative

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Flores , N. (2015). DREAMing the “Right” Way: The Cultural Politics of the DREAM Act and UndocuQueer Social Movements [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429038667

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Flores , Nicholas. DREAMing the “Right” Way: The Cultural Politics of the DREAM Act and UndocuQueer Social Movements . 2015. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429038667.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Flores , Nicholas. "DREAMing the “Right” Way: The Cultural Politics of the DREAM Act and UndocuQueer Social Movements ." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1429038667

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1429038667
1,732
© 2015, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License DREAMing the “Right” Way: The Cultural Politics of the DREAM Act and UndocuQueer Social Movements by Nicholas Flores is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.