Laboring to Belong: Differentiation, Spatial Relocation, and the Ironic Presence of (Un)Documented Immigrants in the United Farm Workers “Take Our Jobs” Campaign

In 2010, the United Farm Workers (UFW) launched a campaign titled “Take Our Jobs!” Explicitly directed at “Americans,” the campaign promised UFW training to applicants for jobs in the nation’s fields. With references to (un)documented immigrants within the nation, the campaign located debates on immigration within the nation, not at the border. I argue that the campaign relied upon irony and visibility politics, generating a logic of absurd reality that allowed audiences to differentiate themselves from (un)documented immigrants in ways that both reinscribe the racial figure of the deportable Mexican and see that figure, at least momentarily, in a humane way.