Drawing from their cultural and ethnic backgrounds to produce vivid images, poetry and music to resist their ascribed social position and fight for social change, undocumented artist activists (“undocuartivists”) around the country have been challenging their illegalization for decades imagining alternative representations of their role and presence in the US. 

Carolina’s collaborative project explores the intersection of art and activism in the immigrants’ rights movement in the Northeastern United States. It examines the ways in which art (particularly visual art, music and performance) provides a counternarrative on the lives of undocumented immigrants in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The research is housed in Lazos América Unida, a Latinx immigrant-led community organization operating out of New Brunswick, NJ that focuses on mobilizing the arts as a means for social transformation. Teresa Vivar, executive director of the organization and a life-long activist for the rights of Latinxs in New Jersey is a member of the research team, along with undocuartivist ethnographer Mirian A. Mijangos García.