The Crossroads: Being Black, Immigrant, and Undocumented

This week, I am sharing what feels like the crowning jewel of my law school experience: an academic article published in the Georgetown Journal of Modern Critical Race Perspectives (MCRP) in 2017, titled "The Crossroads: Being Black, Immigrant, and Undocumented in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter." I originally wrote the article for Professor Allegra McLeod's "Borders, Banishment, and Beyond" course in the spring of 2016. I use the term crown jewel because writing this article demanded so much of me. I had to call on my past experiences in ways I did not expect: interrogating my own Black American and Black immigrant identities, remembering ethnographic research lessons from undergrad, taking chances and entering new movement spaces thousands of miles from home, and contributing to the burgeoning canon. Since writing this article, I've gone on to stay in touch with many of the Black immigrant activists I observed and interviewed, and I've had the privilege of working with many of them.

The progress I've witnessed in the Black immigrant advocacy space since this article was published has been remarkable. There are more organizations catering to the needs of Black immigrants than ever before, and mainstream immigration organizations have begun to unpack anti-Blackness and center the experiences of Black immigrants. Now, mainstream immigration policy think tanks and research hubs publish entire reports on Black immigrants--that was unthinkable just 7 years ago. The work is not nearly over, but it is deeply moving to revisit the recent past and see how far we have come.

Here's the abstract: "This paper discusses the detrimental, intersectional effects of immigration law and criminal law on Black immigrants, both with and without documentation. Anti-Black racism, deeply embedded in America's criminal law system, funnels Black immigrants into the criminal justice system, and subsequently into removal or other punitive immigration proceedings. Black immigrants have long been missing, or purposely erased, from the national immigration narrative. Only a handful of organizations advocate for their particularized needs. As Black immigrant activism increases in visibility, opportunities for a new form of coalition building--known as “transformational solidarity”--must be adopted in order to protect and advocate for Black immigrants."

You can download and read the full article here.