On becoming Mexican in Napa: Mexican immigrant girls negotiating challenges to transnational identities

Abstract

This article examines the ethnic identity formation of high school aged Mexican immigrant adolescent girls. The ethnic identity is new to them and acts as a coping mechanism that allows them to confront the racial order and gender monitoring they experience at home and at their high school. Being Mexican allows them to make meaning of their immigrant experience. The author contends that these girls rather than disconnecting from their national ethnic identity are developing a stronger sense of being Mexican than if they had never left Mexico. However, developing a strong sense of being Mexican comes with challenges. This article is based on 20 unstructured interviews conducted at a local high school in Napa, California. The interviews trace the identity transitions and challenges each girl experienced both before migration and after they arrived in the US. The author finds that they develop an ethnic identity based on their memories of Mexico that they share amongst each other where they long to continue to be part of their old community. The stories of girls point to the identity transitions Mexican immigrant youth experience. Their stories also point to how identities are not clean sequential transitions, but are rather messy, conflicting, and contradictory.

Keywords:

• Mexican immigrants
• adolescent girls
• age
• gender
• transnational migration
• transnational identities

Notes

1. I borrow this idea from Lisa Lowe (1998) who states that Asian immigrants have historically been labeled as, ‘“non whites” and “aliens ineligible for citizenship”’ (p. 31).

2. I use Mexican American and not Chicana because most of the girls in my study did not understand the term Chicano/a since they had recently arrived in Napa. When I replaced Chicana with Mexican American, they knew to whom I was referring.

3. Because most of the girls recently arrived in Napa, the subsequent stages of adaptation are unclear. However, that part of the story is beyond the scope of this study as I am interested in a particular moment where their identity begins to transition.

4. If nations are imagined communities, perhaps then there is no harm to anyone if these girls continue to imagine being part of that community.

5. Claire Jean Kim defines racial triangulation as it relates to the position Asian Americans occupy in between blacks and whites. According to Kim, Asian Americans occupy a sort of in between space within these two groups where whites valorize Asian Americans in relation to blacks, but simultaneously reinforce their position as the perpetual foreigner within. I borrow this idea to see how Mexican immigrant girls are positioned in relation to white girls and Mexican American girls at the high school the girls from my study attend. See Kim (2000, p. 45).

6. Napa County, Bay Area Census (2000).

7. The census makes no distinction among the various Latino immigrant groups that live in Napa County. In 1970, the census defined as Latino ‘Persons of Spanish Origin or Descent’, the 1980 census as ‘Spanish Origin.’ In 1990, the category changed to ‘Hispanic’, while in 2000 to ‘Hispanic or Latino.’ However, the majority of the Latino population living in Napa is of Mexican decent.

8. Napa County, Bay Area Census (2000).

9. See for example the work of James Conaway (1990 and 2002); Cheryll Aimeé Barron (1995); Alan Deutschman (2003); Kate Heyhoe and Stanley Hock (2004).

10. I must underscore the difficulty in recruiting from such a vulnerable and under age population for this study during this anti-Mexican/anti-immigrant moment as it made it quite challenging to convince parents to allow their daughters to be interviewed. Though I believe this affected the recruitment process, I do not believe it had any impact on the quality of the interview.

11. California Department of Education, retrieved on May 22, 2010, from http://www2.cde.ca.gov/scripts/texis.exe/webinator/search?query=Napa%20High%20School&submit=GO

12. There is an extensive body of research on race and schools. See for example, Gilbert Q. Conches (2006); Pedro A. Noguera (2003); Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar (2001); and Angela Valenzuela (1999) among others.

13. This phrase means that that there is no way for one to deny being Mexican as it is practically written over one's face. The cactus makes references to the Mexican flag with the eagle perched on the cactus.

14. The state of Arizona is currently experiencing a similar anti-immigrant/Mexican sentiment as California did in 1994 and most urban areas in 2006.