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Chapter Eight: A Theory of Transnational Identity
- University of Notre Dame Press
- Chapter
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163 C h a P t e R e I g h t a theoRY oF tRaNsNatIoNal IDeNtItY “ y o a m o a J a l o s ” armando lópez, a homeopathic doctor and one of the middle lópez children, describes his youngest sister, socorro, in an admiring tone. “she likes mariachi music, she likes banda. she likes going to Mexican concerts. she is very proud, you know. when she graduated from college, she wore the Mexican flag. she speaks spanish and she loves the Mexican culture, you know, the overall values, marriage, and family.” socorro is very proud of her Mexican culture and roots, like her ten-year-old niece sofia, who told me that she “loves her culture.” Both were born and raised in the United states. one of the most significant and recurrent findings in this study is that respondents retained a strong, almost primal, identification with Jalostotitlán long after their families’ migration. In fact, “being from Jalos” appears to be a fundamental marker of personal identity that is independent of one’s age, place of birth, generation, citizenship , or immigration status, and that continues even among thirdand fourth-generation youth in immigrant families. the young 164 Jalos, usa people in the turlock focus groups, for example, closely identified and were visibly proud of being from Jalos. this sense of loyalty and identification, however, is not so much with Mexico, or with their native state of Jalisco as portrayed in the golden age of Mexican cinema (see chapter 4), or even with the los altos region, as it is with their ancestral home. like the indigenous xaripu community studied by Manuel Barajas (2009), the respondents ’ identification with Jalostotitlán appears to be a long-standing village identity with a community whose existence predates the founding both of the United states and Mexico as nation states. Most ausentes in turlock, as described earlier in this volume, said that they enjoyed visiting and returning with their children to their hometown of Jalos for the yearly fiesta for the Virgen de la asunción and for Carnaval. those with teen-age children remarked that their children loved Jalos and were intrigued with some of the traditions and courtship customs, such as “dando la vuelta a la plaza.” the children generally got along well with cousins and friends in Jalos and enjoyed an increased sense of freedom. Despite this strong sense of identity with their hometown that cuts across generations, there still were generational differences, even within the same nuclear family. the large lópez family, for example, distinguished among siblings according to whether they had lived the “Mexican experience,” which necessarily included being undocumented when they arrived. armando remarked, the ones who were born in the United states had not lived “the Mexican experience.” those born in Mexico, on the other hand, knew what it’s like to live in Mexico and understand the culture, whereas from lupe down to the twins, that’s the time we moved here. the twins were born here. socorro was born here. My brother Manuel was born here also, so they never lived the Mexican experience. . . . the only way they learned was through us; stories we would tell them. armando added that because the Mexico siblings were undocumented , they had their own unique experiences going through the border illegally, and “you know all the struggles we went through.” on one occasion when the family tried to cross the border, they be- [107.21.176.63] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:37 GMT) a Theory of Transnational identity 165 came split up, and those who didn’t have papers had to remain in tijuana. their cousin was a Coyote, and he provided them with counterfeit papers. they stayed in the red light district of tijuana for about three or four days because that was where their cousin lived, until they were finally able to cross on their third attempt. the lópez family members jokingly refer to one segment of the family as “the Mexicans” and the other as “the americans,” but do so in a neutral, matter-of-fact way rather than in a pejorative one. Rosa Fuentes, as described in chapter 6, remarked jokingly that her four children were “half and half,” two Mexicanos and two americanos . In this chapter I summarize and review some of the findings from interviews, before turning to a discussion of the factors behind ausente success and proposing a theoretical model of transnational...