The Rhetorical Dimensions of Citizenship: Undocumented Immigrants Defining Their Identity and Place in the “Nation of Immigrants”

Abstract

The idea of the United States as a nation of immigrants has been a focal point of citizenship and immigration discourses in the latter half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. At the same time, unauthorized migration became a political concern in the nation-state’s regime of governmentality. The regime defined the terms of admission, concurrently producing the conditions of illegality, ascribing them to those deemed unwanted and unwelcome, the ever-so-popular “illegal aliens.” As the political regime continues to increase its efforts to place rhetorical and material borders around what is perceived as “American,” citizenship has become an increasingly contested term. In this dissertation, I examine the rhetorical efforts of undocumented immigrants and their allies to protest the dominant discursive regime of illegality. The dissertation posits that the mythic framework of “nation of immigrants” has come to define the different ways in which citizenship and belonging are understood in the United States. Through examinations of speeches by immigrant rights activists, the three case studies of the dissertation present several ways in which undocumented immigrants and their allies approach the concept of citizenship. My examination reveals how some activists strategically appeal for marginal inclusion through documentation; other activists demand a path to citizenship as a strategy for inclusion; yet others rely on decolonializing rhetorics that seek to redefine cultural and formal citizenship in the United States. The three contrasting strategies illustrate the complexity of immigrant rights activism in the early 21st century, showcasing how undocumented immigrants unmask, challenge, reconfigure, but also sometimes reaffirm, the powers of the nation-state to determine the norms of citizenship. In its entirety, the project advances our understanding of the rhetorical dimensions of citizenship and offers insights into how the coalition building efforts of immigrants are often limited by their contrasting and competing visions of inclusion and membership in a national community.