Forging an Identity as a Transfronterizo Student in the Context of Neoliberalism and English Language Learning at the U.S.-Mexico Border

ABSTRACT

Transnational flows in people and economy have shaped the need and desire for Mexicans to learn English and so many families enroll their children in cross-border schooling. These children, known as transfronterizos, live in Mexico and cross the border each day to attend U.S. schools. Through ethnography, this article explores the experiential complications of teachers’ and pre-service teachers’ who were transfronterizos in their youth, particularly how neoliberal ways of thinking complicated their sense of identity and the function of bilingual, bicultural education in their lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingual/Bicultural Education
• Ethnography
• Transfronterizos
• U.S.-Mexico Border

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Students who live in Mexico and cross the border to attend U.S. schools has been difficult to quantify due to migrant status. Most are U.S. citizens or passport holders, but not necessarily residents. Some are legal permanent residents while others hold student visas (West, 2019).

² Nevins (2002) describes the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands as “landscapes of death” (p. 144), because though some crossings may be nonthreatening, they are inseparable from experiences of “rape, mutilation, disappearance and protracted irremediable trauma” (DeGenova 2013, p. 1182) that have forged its character throughout history. Organized crime, along with federal forces used to obstruct them, have made moving across the border more dangerous, with regular sequestering, extortion, and trafficking now a profitable business (Alvarez, 2020; Mora Vázquez, et al., 2020; Osuna, 2021).

³ The Border Crossing Card is a pass for Mexican border residents that has been in use since 1918. This non-employment, nonresident visa is good for 10 years and allows U.S. travel within twenty-five miles of the border.

⁴ To obtain a Border Crossing Card, applicants may be asked to present employment letters, paycheck stubs, diplomas, proof of home ownership, etc. Yeh (2017b) notes that it is the applicant who presents the fewest documents, whose status is “evident” in their “bearing, dress, tone of speech, and the color and softness of skin and hair” that ultimately gets the visa (p. 162). These cards are not merely a token that allows families to shop across the border and visit Disney – the card, by the power of state’s recognition, provides “legitimation of social status” (Yeh, 2017b, p. 171) and marks the ideal citizen – one who is never poor, never dark, never illegal.

⁵ Most students who cross the border come from middle- and upper-class families. A smaller amount come from working-class families (Chávez, 2016; West, 2019).

⁶ Data was collected between 2018–2020.

⁷ Residents experience high rates of asthma and respiratory infections due to air pollution from agricultural chemicals and pesticides, vehicular traffic, crop burnings, and desert dust (Donelson & Esparza, 2010).

⁸ As in Calexico, particle matter in the air has led to high rates of asthma and respiratory illnesses in Mexicali (Gladstone et al., 2021; James & Meyers, 2018).

⁹ All the schools were a stone’s throw of the U.S.-Mexico International Border, about a 10-minute walk from the U.S. Customs West Port of Entry.

¹⁰ Maria initially attended private school but later transferred to public school.

¹¹ Participants were given archival quality paper to draw their border-crossing journey. They were also given pencils, markers, a ruler, and crayons to work with.