Brainstorm Week 7 - Zahra McKee

I think the undocuqueer activists’ use of social media is really powerful and meaningful, specifically because they use it to put faces to an issue that politicians have tried to dehumanize through anti-immigrant rhetoric. And moreover, undocuqueer activists aren’t trying to homogenize their community but rather celebrate and highlight all their differences, from nationality to sexual or gender identity, and everything in between. I never had made the connection that the undocumented rights movement was lead by primarily queer activists because they weren’t able to get married and gain citizenship status like heterosexuals, so I thought this was a super interesting point brought up in these sources too. There are strong connections between the concept of social death and how undocuqueer activists use social media because, besides the use of social media for organizing, much of these activist’s social media use is creating a narrative for themselves and affirming their own worth. In the interview Layers of Humanity with Hinda Seif, undocuqueer artivist Julio Salgado explains his art aims to display his fellow undocuqueers “in dignified ways that embrace the terms that make us feel like we are less than human. At the end of the day, they are just words that do not define us as human beings. It’s important to use the words and put a face next to them” (306). By proudly claiming identities that others may associate with social death, undocuqueer activists imagine and carve out a future for themselves, and through their posts on social media, encourage others to do the same. Whether it be blog posts, personal and drawn posters, or relatable videos, undocuqueer activists use social media to not only organize, but also build a community of resilience.