Undocumented college students experience a myriad of stressors (e.g., fear of deportation, limited resources; transitioning to college; Enriquez et al., 2018; Hurst et al., 2013) because of systemic oppression, yet they often engage in various advocacy efforts to challenge those oppressive systems. Although different persuasion (e.g., Focus Theory of Normative Conduct, the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Anger Activism Model; Ajzen, 1991, 2005; Cialdini et al., 1990; Turner, 2007) and social movements theories (e.g., Mass Society Theory; The Theory of Relative Deprivation; Bernstein & Crosby, 1998; Gusfield, 1994) exist that describe why minoritized group members advocate on behalf of their ingroup, these theories primarily focus on traditional forms of advocacy rather than representing advocacy as multidimensional. Consequently, in Chapter 1, this dissertation introduces Advocacy Communication Theory (ACT), which argues that advocacy communication is a complex process comprised of advocacy strategies at the individual, interpersonal, community, organizational, and policy levels. ACT also identifies predictors of undocumented students’ advocacy communication by drawing from communication and psychological factors, and it discusses the potential health implications associated with engaging in different advocacy communication strategies. In Chapter 2, I test part of ACT using latent profile analysis and two waves of longitudinal survey data from 329 undocumented college students, primarily of Latinx origin. Chapter 3 sheds light on the dynamic nature of advocacy communication, examining the extent to which undocumented students remain in the same type of advocacy group after 30 days or transition to another type of advocacy group. I end this dissertation with Chapter 4, where I discuss the theoretical and practical contributions of ACT and the findings from Chapters 2 and 3.

Using Communication Privacy Management (Petronio, 2002) and the Revelation Risk Model (Afifi & Steuber, 2009) this study explores Deferred for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients’ discovery of their immigration status. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 DACA recipients—primarily of Latinx and Asian backgrounds—across California to explore DACA recipients’ perceptions of: (a) why family members might or might not tell their children (i.e., DACA recipients) about their undocumented status; (b) what such disclosures, when they occur, look like communicatively; (c) how the disclosures affect their family relationships; and (d) how the disclosures affect DACA recipients’ identity. Results suggest different emerging themes of the disclosure process (e.g., DACA recipients’ perceptions of their family members’ disclosure motivations and disclosure-strategies used by DACA recipients’ parents) for DACA recipients who learned of their undocumented status as children or who always knew their status compared to those who were told their status during adolescence. In addition, our findings shed light on DACA recipients’ perceptions of how this disclosure process influenced their family relationships (e.g., resentment, parental appreciation) and identity reconceptualization (e.g., empowerment, dehumanized). These findings help extend prior communication privacy management scholarship with an understudied group, as well as provide practical implications for DACA recipients and allies that work with immigrant youth communities.