UCLA

The current contemporary narrative about undocumented immigration in the United States tells a single story that posits a Latin* lens, where Latin* individuals are racially profiled and criminalized. This single story is an incomplete narrative about undocumented individuals and their families. The purpose of this critical narrative inquiry is to create a cognitive frame to understand the racialized realities that exists at the intersection of race and undocumented status through the stories of undocumented Asian undergraduate students in California. Using a critical narrative inquiry methodology that is theoretically anchored in double-consciousness, critical consciousness, and liminal legality, this inquiry complicates undocumented status by showing varied ways people become undocumented that counters the dominant majoritarian narrative about coming to the U.S. the right way. Additionally, findings from this inquiry give language to the protective adaptive strategies and coping mechanisms undocumented Asian students employed to negotiate a racialized subjectivity as “Asian” while navigating a material reality as undocumented in their educational journeys. Findings from this inquiry have implications for immigration policy, student services in higher education and careers and employment, and humanizing methodologies in educational research.