Identity negotiations of a Mexican transnational in the Rio Grande Valley: Crossing the border daily

Abstract

This narrative case study examines the cultural affiliations of one transnational US-born Mexican American college student, and her various intersecting veins of identity. The aim was to capture the bordered existence in the many criteria of her being. Her linguistic identity, pop culture identity, spiritual identity, as well as her general cultural affiliations are examined as intersecting rays of influence. Utilizing Anzaldúa’s (2012) bordered identity as theoretical grounding for her partitioned selves, along with Bakhtin’s (1986) notion of cultural and linguistic dialogue, we analyzed the complexities in this one bicultural, bilingual young woman venturing into adulthood. This study sheds light on the experiences and identifications of transnational young people living on the US-Mexico border. In particular, the participant seemed to continuously challenge fixed notions of identity, which contest current academic labels and frameworks that scholars have used to examine the identity of transnational students.