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PUBLICATIONS

“No soy víctima”: Diásporas deportadas y familias

de estatus mixtas fracturadas (2026)

This chapter aims to shed light on the experiences of immigrants who arrived in the United States during childhood and were subsequently deported after spending most of their lives there. Using the concept of the “childhood arrival diaspora,” it analyzes how this population suffers human rights violations during their criminalization and deportation to their country of origin. The methodology is based on the analysis of digital narratives from the Humanizing Deportation project. It focuses on Angel, who was deported at age 21 after losing DACA and his family. The findings reveal the emotional, social, and material consequences of deportation, and how it affects mixed-status families. The discus- sion addresses punitive immigration policies, the profit-driven role of the border industrial complex, and the need for an ethical and critical perspective on the immigration system, proposing that the voices of the deported be centered in public debate.
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"Art Against the Border: Painting US Childhood Arrival Diaspora Narratives" (2026)

This chapter examines the Playas de Tijuana Mural Project, a transborder artistic intervention that amplifies the narratives of U.S. childhood arrivals impacted by deportation. Located along the U.S.-Mexico border, the mural features large-scale portraits of individuals forcibly removed despite their deep ties to the United States. By integrating Quick Response (QR) codes, the project links these images to first-person digital narratives from the Humanizing Deportation archive, fostering an intermedial engagement that challenges dominant discourses on migration, exclusion, and belonging. Through an analysis of the testimonies of Karla Estrada and Javier Salazar, this chapter explores the intersection of public art, digital activism, and migrant resistance. Estrada’s narrative critiques the limitations of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the moral binaries imposed on undocumented immigrants, while Salazar’s account illustrates the nexus of criminalization, forced removal, and artistic reclamation. Drawing on border studies, digital humanities, and migration scholarship, the chapter situates the mural within broader debates on intermediality, surveillance, and community storytelling. Ultimately, the Playas de Tijuana Mural Project transforms the border fence from a symbol of exclusion into a site of resistance, asserting the agency of deported Americans and demanding recognition within migration and human rights frameworks.
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Until Someone Listens: A Story about Borders, Family, and One Girl’s Mission (2022) by Estela Juarez and Lissette Norman (review) (2024)

In this review, Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana examines Estela Juarez and Lissette Norman’s Until Someone Listens: A Story about Borders, Family, and One Girl’s Mission (2024), a children’s picture book that centers the experiences of a young girl whose family is affected by deportation and separation. The review considers how the book uses a child’s perspective to illuminate the emotional and social consequences of immigration enforcement while foregrounding family, advocacy, and the power of storytelling. De La Cruz Santana situates the book within broader conversations about borders and migration, emphasizing its capacity to humanize the experiences of deported mothers and families often reduced to statistics or political abstractions. Through its accessible narrative and emphasis on listening, the book offers young readers an entry point into complex questions of belonging, displacement, and family separation. The review argues that Until Someone Listens makes a timely contribution to children’s literature about migration by centering lived experience and demonstrating how a child’s voice can become a vehicle for recognition, empathy, and social awareness.
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"Deported Childhood Arrivals "from the famous Estados Unidos" DREAMing in Tijuana" (2022)

This chapter aims to shed light on the experiences of immigrants who arrived in the United States during childhood and were subsequently deported after spending most of their lives there. Using the concept of the “childhood arrival diaspora,” it analyzes how this population suffers human rights violations during their criminalization and deportation to their country of origin. The methodology is based on the analysis of digital narratives from the Humanizing Deportation project. It focuses on Angel, who was deported at age 21 after losing DACA and his family. The findings reveal the emotional, social, and material consequences of deportation, and how it affects mixed-status families. The discus- sion addresses punitive immigration policies, the profit-driven role of the border industrial complex, and the need for an ethical and critical perspective on the immigration system, proposing that the voices of the deported be centered in public debate.
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The Playas de Tijuana Mural Project Digital Storytelling, Portraiture and U.S.-Mexico Border Art (2022)

This explores how public art and digital storytelling can challenge dominant representations of migration and deportation. Focusing on the Playas de Tijuana Mural Project, the chapter examines large-scale portraits of people who experienced deportation and the use of QR codes to connect these visual representations to their first-person digital stories. By placing portraits directly on the U.S.-Mexico border wall, the project transforms a structure associated with separation and exclusion into a public space for memory, testimony, and connection. De La Cruz Santana argues that combining portraiture, community participation, and digital media allows individuals affected by deportation to exercise agency over how their experiences are represented. The chapter situates the project within broader conversations about border art, migration, belonging, and counter-narratives, demonstrating how art can humanize experiences that are often reduced to political debates and statistics. Ultimately, the Playas de Tijuana Mural Project illustrates how creative practices can transform the physical and symbolic meaning of the border while creating opportunities for marginalized communities to share their stories and challenge simplified narratives about migration and identity.
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"Navigating the Joys and Challenges of Public Scholarship in Graduate School" Imagining America (2020)

The following report provides an account of the graduate student experiences of activists and public scholars from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). The report charts myriad themes that emerged during interviews conducted in the summer of 2020 by Alana Haynes Stein (Sociology) and Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana (Spanish and Portuguese), UC Davis PhD candidates who were Mellon Public Scholars on Imagining America’s Leading and Learning Initiative (LLI) in 2020.
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Engaged Public Scholarship: Playas de Tijuana Mural Project (2019)

The Playas de Tijuana Mural Project (2019) demonstrates how engaged public scholarship can connect research, art, and community storytelling. The mural highlights the experiences of migrants and deportees by linking visual art to digital testimonies through QR codes. By bringing scholarly research into a public space, the project encourages dialogue about migration, belonging, and deportation while showing how art can make academic work accessible and meaningful to broader communities.
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"DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras – Proyecto de narrativa digital" (2017)

In “DACAmentados: Sueños sin fronteras: Proyecto de narrativa digital” (2017), De La Cruz Santana presents a digital storytelling project that centers the testimonies and experiences of DACA recipients and Dreamers. Drawing on the personal testimony as a form of social activism, the chapter explores how digital media—including video, the internet, smartphones, and other technologies—can provide undocumented and formerly undocumented migrants with a platform to narrate their own experiences and participate in public conversations about immigration. De La Cruz Santana describes the project's origins in a 2016 digital storytelling workshop at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Tijuana and explains how the methodology allows personal stories to become tools for community engagement and political dialogue. The project ultimately emphasizes storytelling as an act of agency: by documenting the lives, aspirations, challenges, and identities of DACAmented individuals and Dreamers, digital narratives challenge dominant representations of migration while creating a space for marginalized voices to be heard.
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