CEDILLO, Christina V.

Special Issue – Disability, 50.3 pages: 203-211

Disabled and Undocumented: In/Visibility at the Borders of Presence, Disclosure, and Nation

Abstract:

Attention to disability and undocumented status illuminates the impact of in/visibility on multiply marginalized individuals. Visibility can prove dangerous for vulnerable populations exposed to physical and symbolic violence; yet invisibility also poses risks. Nevertheless, visibility and invisibility can also be useful rhetorical schemes. Here, I focus on branding and non/images to interrogate this ambivalence in the case of Rosa Maria Hernandez, a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy brought to the United States when she was three months old, and that of Eva Chavez, an undocumented activist whose defense campaign publicized her role as primary caretaker of her 11-year-old disabled citizen son. These cases show that, for targeted people, in/visibility is gradated, compulsory, and tactical, producing presence and belonging relative to exposure and risk.