Fall 2025
AES 442 Undocumented Immigrant Communities:
Documenting Narratives, Identity and Rights
Professor: Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky
Associate Professor, Department of American Ethnic Studies (info about meLinks to an external site.)
Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Meetings: MW 1:30-3:20pm in 331A Bagley Hall
Email: cpt4@uw.edu
Off Hours: TBA in A517 Padelford Hall
Provisional description:
What does the concept, “undocumented,” mean? Historically, how can we trace the meanings and practice of this idea in structuring mobility, categories of immigration status and citizenship? What are the outcomes that produce a lived experience of “undocumented-ness”? In these unsettling times, the migrant crisis compels us to understand the forces that produce these ideas. We will scrutinize important distinctions situated in axes of power, specifically in racialized and gendered contexts.
In a discussion-based class setting and working with primary and secondary sources, students will learn about and engage in creative practice the transformation of bodies as archives with a particular focus on documents, documenting techniques and storytelling. Examples can be the presence, absence and production of material items like passports, licenses (driving and occupational), work histories, health records and the like, as well as the changes and users of technology in their production. Institutional outcomes in migration, law, labor, carceral spaces, education, and health are areas in social life that may be examined in course materials. And we will learn about experiences across diverse communities, i.e., UndocuLatino, UndocuBlack, UndocuAsian and Pacific Islander, and UndocuQueer communities.
Possible assignments for this class may comprise some of the following:
1. Discussion Points and Questions about assigned readings - submit to Canvas
2. Leading in-class discussion about readings (individual or group led)
3. Concept Conversation, Assessment or Reflection- submit to Canvas in specified weeks
4. Short Papers (individual or paired assignments) - submit to Canvas
5. Memo regarding Final Assignment (individual or group assignment) - submit to Canvas
6. Bibliography for Final Assignment - submit to Canvas
7. Final Assignment Work in Progress - submit in class in specified weeks
8. Presentation of Final Assignment - in class
9. Final Assignment - submit to Canvas
10. Community spotlight entries or community project – submit to Canvas
This is an upper-division course. Course readings are interdisciplinary from sociology, anthropology, ethnic and critical race studies, history, and socio-legal studies. You should have a basic familiarity with studies in race, ethnicity, gender, labor, inequality and migration OR read supplementary material on your own that will support your studies.