DREAMers and the Choreography of Protest

Michael P. Young is Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Bearing Witness against Sin: The Evangelical Birth of the American Social Movement. His research has been published in leading journals, including American Sociological Review, Social Problems, and Theory and Society.

• Preface: "There's no movement"Introduction: "To speak in its name": Movement Reification and RadicalizationChapter 1: Conjuring the DREAMerChapter 2: Campus DREAMersChapter 3: DreamACTivist.orgChapter 4: 2010, Part I: The Dream is ComingChapter 5: 2010, Part II: Noodles 2.0Chapter 6: 2011: NIYA and the Bad DreamersChapter 7: 2012 and 2013: Infiltrators and CoyotesConclusion: On the Mysteries of Movements and RadicalizationAppendix: Method and DataAcknowledgementsNotesReferencesIndex

This story of the undocumented young people who radicalized the movement for immigrant rights is fast-paced, exciting, and often poignant. It also offers a profound rethinking of how movements radicalize. Rather than either emotional or strategic, activists here radicalized when their anger at mainstream groups pushed them to innovate strategically. Fed up with the idealized image of the 'DREAMer', some activists both rejected that image and self-consciously exploited it, using the political protection it offered them to engage in daring acts of civil disobedience. With sensitivity and insight, Michael Young captures the originality of the strategy-and its costs for activists. A fascinating read.