Crossing Language and Identity as a Critical Border Ethnographer in Southern California

Abstract

This article discusses the language and identity challenges I faced as a critical border ethnographer from Spain doing fieldwork in Southern California. I focus on the multiple positionings that I negotiated doing fieldwork in La Clase Mágica (The Magic Class), a computer-based, after-school bilingual program for Mexican/Mexican American/Chicano-a children, youth, and adults in Southern California. The article explores the processes of transformation I underwent as a female, Andalusian speaker of Castilian and researcher from Spain, in relation to a group of Mexican immigrant women participating in this program. Data come from naturally occurring interactions and interview data with children, mothers, caretakers, and university students attending the program. I consider interactional and interview data as “sites of struggle,” where participants construct and negotiate representations of themselves and those they align with and distance themselves from, as well as “sites of transformation,” where critical ethnographers can move beyond the traps and tricks of ethnography.

Keywords:

• critical ethnography
• reflexivity
• language
• identity
• border-crossing
• Mexican immigration

Notes

¹The Royal Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española (RAE), http://www.rae.es/), the main institution of the Spanish-speaking world that regulates the usage, grammar, and orthography of the Spanish language, was established in 1713 in Spain.

² Traffic was released in 2000. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. It shows the complexity of human nature regarding the War on Drugs in the United States. The San Diego-Tijuana border plays a protagonist role in the film as the main entry of drug trafficking, crime, and corruption, which challenges and changes the characters' lives regardless of their social status.