Coming out: Examining how undocumented students critically navigate status disclosure processes.

Undocumented college students are often simultaneously navigating multiple social, financial, educational, and legal barriers. The ways in which they navigate their educational journeys are inherently implicated in how they manage the disclosure of their legal status, but few investigations to date have explicitly examined undocumented students' disclosure pathways (Munoz, 2015). This study aims to fill this gap by examining how undocumented college students negotiate the constant decision-making process to share their undocumented status. The research questions were explored utilizing a thematic analysis of 18 in-depth interviews from undocumented students attending a California public university. Our findings demonstrated that the disclosure processes of undocumented students depended on the ways in which they actively negotiated contextual factors, social relationships, and potential risks. Undocumented students in this study shared their status with institutional agents to access resources and with peers in supportive spaces. They also shared their status to educate others about what it means to be undocumented as an act of resistance. Conversely, when choosing not to share their status, undocumented students reported approaching situations with caution and navigating potential responses to disclosure. Understanding the contexts in which undocumented students choose to share or conceal their status has critical implications with respect to institutional and campus-wide policies and practices needed to better support the unique needs of undocumented college students.