Title: Embodied Persistence: Rethinking Student Development Through Undocumented Activism
Presenter(s):
Camila Ozores Silva (she/her)
Room: Margaret Brent 2112
Session Block(s): Session IV
Time: 2:55 p.m. to 3:55 p.m.
Duration: 60 minutes
Program Abstract:
This session introduces the concept of Embodied Persistence, a decolonial framework that reimagines undocumented student activism as a legitimate form of student development and persistence. Drawing on Theory in the Flesh, UndocuCrit, and Borderlands epistemologies, the presenter illustrates how undocumented students transform lived precarity into political consciousness, collective care, and forms of learning overlooked by dominant persistence models. Participants will explore how recognizing activism as pedagogical and diagnostic can reshape institutional practices, advising, and approaches to supporting undocumented students.
Program Description:
Dominant student persistence theories, such as Tinto’s Student Departure Theory and Astin’s Involvement Theory, position success as assimilation into institutional life, an expectation rooted in white, Western, and citizenship-based assumptions. These models fail to account for the lived realities of undocumented students, for whom visibility can be dangerous, belonging is conditional, and “integration” is not always possible or desirable. This session presents Embodied Persistence, a decolonial framework that understands undocumented student activism as a site of knowledge production, political agency, and community-rooted survival.
Grounded in Theory in the Flesh, UndocuCrit, and Borderlands scholarship, this framework highlights three core propositions: (1) Embodiment is epistemology: undocumented students theorize from the body, drawing on lived precarity and coraje as sources of knowledge; (2) Activism is pedagogy: organizing, protest, mutual aid, and testimonio operate as decolonial classrooms fostering critical consciousness and collective care; and (3) Persistence is political: continuing one’s education under threat of legal instability is itself a radical act of resistance.
This session invites educators, practitioners, and student leaders to rethink assumptions about “engagement,” “success,” and “disruption” by recognizing dissent as data—a diagnostic indicator of institutional harm and an opportunity for transformation. Through interactive reflection and small-group dialogue, participants will examine how their own institutions and departments may inadvertently pathologize activism and overlook the intellectual labor embedded in undocumented student organizing. Attendees will leave with a deeper understanding of undocumented epistemologies, strategies for creating power-conscious and supportive environments, and a reimagined framework for student persistence rooted in dignity, embodiment, and community liberation.