The Undocumented Everyday: Migrant Lives and the Politics of Visibility by Rebecca M. Schreiber (review)
Rebecca M. Schreiber successfully fuses aesthetic and political analysis to illuminate the practices of self-representation among the undocumented. Through a skillful examination of the art authored by Mexican and Central American immigrants in the post 9/11 era, Schreiber documents an exceedingly interesting and fraught visual culture. Considering that this is a group whose very visibility is a troublesome prospect, Schreiber nevertheless chronicles a variety of subaltern aesthetic practices pursued by immigrants to make themselves visible, sometimes on their own terms and sometimes through highly mediated interventions. She also very fluently handles the political context in which these representations were created. While primarily interested in the practices of self-representation pursued by the undocumented, Schreiber places these efforts within the history of deportation and exploitation that has characterized immigration policy in the early twenty-first century.