Relying on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research in California (2011-2018), this article theorizes the experiences of politicized, 1.5-generation Latinx immigrants who have transitioned out of undocumented status. It shows that transitioning out of undocumented status comes with feelings of joy and privilege, as well as with feelings of survivor guilt, ontological fragmentation, and wanting to take up new responsibilities as a way of repaying, and standing in solidarity with, undocumented family and community members. I argue that the transitioning experiences of previously undocumented immigrants relate to (1) their mixed-status families in the context of uneven penalization of undocumented immigrants, (2) the immigrant narrative of struggle and sacrifice, (3) politicization, pressure, and social control within the immigrant rights movement, and (4) their durably embodied undocumented subjectivities. This paper thereby advances more relational understandings of citizenship, (political) subjectivity, and the profound effects of legal violence caused by the citizenship regime.
