The deportability continuum as activist research

Abstract

This essay explores the aftermath of deportation and the concept of a deportability continuum from the perspective of a transnational, activist researcher. Retracing the process of becoming an activist and researcher via the successful though measured impact of a book of first-person testimonios and photography titled Los Otros Dreamers, this article argues for the significance of the “deportability continuum” as a concept in need of dissemination and debate beyond academe. This analysis of the deportability continuum in a US–Mexico context also renders more clear and concrete the transnational connections between the threat of deportation and the aftermath of deportation. Via the work of community organizing, the connections that implicate the disciplinary investments of Latinxs Studies with Latin American Studies come alive in the ongoing articulations of Poch@ House, a new community and cultural space in Mexico City.