Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal [Paperback]

Explores what it means to be undocumented in a legal, social, economic and historical context
 
In this illuminating work, immigrant rights activist Aviva Chomsky shows how “illegality” and “undocumentedness” are concepts that were created to exclude and exploit. With a focus on US policy, she probes how people, especially Mexican and Central Americans, have been assigned this status—and to what ends. Blending history with human drama, Chomsky explores what it means to be undocumented in a legal, social, economic, and historical context. The result is a powerful testament of the complex, contradictory, and ever-shifting nature of status in America.Contents
 
PREFACE    ix
INTRODUCTION    1
 
CHAPTER 1
Where Did Illegality Come From?    23
 
CHAPTER 2
Choosing to Be Undocumented    40
 
CHAPTER 3
Becoming Illegal     71
 
CHAPTER 4
What Part of “Illegal” Do You Understand?    87
 
CHAPTER 5
Working (Part 1)    113
 
CHAPTER 6
Working (Part 2)    130
 
CHAPTER 7
Children and Families    152
 
CHAPTER 8
Solutions    181
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 209
NOTES 210
INDEX 238“An impassioned and well-reported case for change.... Chomsky ably lays out just how brutal life can be for the undocumented.” 
—New York TimesSunday Book Review

“Undocumented adds smart, new, and provocative scholarship to the immigration debate.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“From the first page to the last,Undocumentedis to immigrant rights movement whatWe Charge Genocidewas to the African American movement—a dossier that sets aside quibbleslc.