Becoming White in a White Supremacist State: The Public and Psychological Wages of Whiteness for Undocumented 1.5-Generation Brazilians

This study draws on in-depth and longitudinal interviews with twenty-nine 1.5-generation Brazilian immigrants, all of whom can pass as white experienced illegality in young adulthood. I argue that they benefit from what W.E.B. Du Bois calls “the public psychological wages whiteness”. That is, white-passing, undocumented men women largely navigate space without being stopped, questioned, arrested, detained and/or deported. Additionally, psychologically—as gain confidence due to perceived whiteness, even their immigration status would render them vulnerable exploitation the labor market deportation. These whiteness facilitate social material gains. there are three mechanisms by which experience whiteness. First, brings assumed innocence. Second, racial solidarity other whites facilitates opportunities protection. Third, some Brazilians actively construct accrue wages. findings challenge master perspective underscore importance an intersectional framework for understanding immigrants’ varied experiences illegality, bringing light quotidian, gendered practices identities sustain structures supremacy.