Brainstorm #7 - Elena Orlando

Undocuqueer artivistas use social media to create spaces in which queer undocumented folxs create their own narratives, not using criminalization or anti-queer sentiments as something to define themselves against. Using social media platforms as spaces to express intersectionality, undocuqueer artivistas address their marginalization from both immigrant and queer communities. As Julio Salgado says "undocumented is not an ethnicity:" the way in which the state creates the idea of an undocumented immigrant is integral to the criminalization of Chican@s (Seif 305). Undocuqueer artivistas importantly link social media participation to direct action; social media builds a base for action that needs to take place in person. In reference to direct actions by two young undocuqueer activists, Salgado says "The civil disobediences happened because they met on Facebook, but we still need the rallies. They put their bodies on the line" (Seif 307). In defiance of social death, these young folxs refuse to let the state dictate what happens to their bodies by redefining how they are represented and by coming together and building their power. Using social media to form networks, translocal communities and shared identity, undocumented youth emancipate themselves as this participation "increases their feelings of self-worth and political efficacy" (Costanza-Chock 145). By policitizing an identity they created for themselves, undocuqueer artivistas use social media to heal and thus strengthen their resilience to social death and create futures full of their humanity.