Abstract: Dominant
narratives of migrant resistance focus on the massive protests of 2006, but
migrant protest was significant well before this landmark event. Drawing on an
original database of 222 migrant protest events, this paper traces the
development of migrant resistance in California between 1990 and 2010. We argue
that migrant protest may be understood as political ‘acts of citizenship’,
which vary as they respond to specific vulnerabilities and political
attachments. While a non-trivial minority of protests exhibited a
global politics,
oriented towards migrants’ home countries or other places outside of the USA,
the overwhelming majority of protests may be understood as
inclusion
politics, which sought to counter migrant precarity by promoting the
integration and fair treatment of migrants within the USA. Within this broad
emphasis on inclusion, however, migrant protest in California alternated
between a work politics focused on issues such as wages and unionization, a
protection politics focused on public services and goods, and an immigration
politics centered on issues of legalization and law enforcement. The latter
became increasingly prevalent over time, and would come to define the
contemporary immigrant rights movement. Taken as a whole, the evidence affirms
that migrants have significant capacity for developing collective agency and
resistance.
