Future Visioning Research for Immigrant Justice

As part of our Immigrant Narrative Strategy Table, The Opportunity Agenda worked with Grey Area Collective to embark on future visioning research for the immigrant justice movement. In this project, we studied the dominant mindsets that currently hinder our movement’s success, and we explored new ways of thinking that could enable substantial narrative changing wins. In other words, we asked: what would it feel, look, and sound like to live in a world with vastly different ways of thinking about immigrants and immigration? 

Over a fourth month period, the team engaged in a rigorous future visioning process. We synthesized existing research on immigration narratives, interviewed 11 immigrant justice leaders, conducted a future visioning workshop with 23 culture-makers and organizers, and engaged in countless street interviews with New Yorkers to understand how everyday people think and talk about immigration.

Our final product is Shift – a speculative magazine for the immigrant justice movement. Written from the perspective of the year 2050, the magazine traces how dominant narratives evolve to enable sustained wins for immigrant justice. Beyond illuminating specific policy changes, the zine highlights how shifts in public opinion and dominant narratives manifest in culture change and mass mobilization across the country. The magazine includes a timeline of narrative shifting milestones, seven key mindset shifts that lead to movement success, and three fundamental ways immigration narratives could be rewritten by our movement. While this zine is not an exact blueprint of what will happen, it encourages audiences to imagine what is possible by giving a potent example of how envisioning new narratives can reshape our world.