Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are by Abigail C. Saguy (Oxford University Press, 2020)

• This book shows how the concept of coming out has been used in five distinct contexts: the American LGBTQ+ movement, the fat acceptance movement, the undocumented immigrant youth movement, the plural-marriage family movement among Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, and the #MeToo movement.
• Provides a close look at how identity politics works by focusing on the dynamics of social recognition and social change across stigmatized groups
• Draws on 146 in-depth interviews, as well as participant observation and textual analysis of five different social movements.

In Chapter 3, Saguy explains how the undocumented immigrant youth movement has evoked “coming out as undocumented and unafraid” to mobilize fearful constituents.  She discusses the local and state-level legislative changes for which the movement has advocated, including the federal DREAM Act – and argues that while the DREAM Act never passed, the undocumented immigrant youth movement arguably led President Obama to sign the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order in June 2012. Ultimately, she shows how the undocumented immigrant youth movement has successfully challenged cultural understandings by offering an alternative image to that of “illegal immigrants” sneaking across the border—that of educated and talented “DREAMers.”

KJ