This article explores how undocumented people and their family members strategically narrate stories of hardship to build community, legitimize their experiences, cultivate political consciousness, and combat dehumanizing stereotypes of undocumented people. As they share stories, personal experiences of hardship become a critical source of information and validation, as well as a resource that undocumented organizers can draw upon to cultivate possibilities for social and political change. This article considers not only the political possibilities that strategic deployment of hardship narratives present but also their theoretical, methodological, and political implications for ethnographers.
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