Immigration Stories and the Construction of a Bilingual American Identity (original) (raw)
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2008
This dissertation studies the modern migration of Spaniards to the United States and the process of identity formation among the Spanish immigrant communities in America from the U.S.-Mexican War to the aftermath of World War II. The starting point underscores one of its main arguments: the impetus for the development of a Spanish ethnic identity among Spaniards in nineteenth-century America was U.S. expansionism in Mexico and the Caribbean. Confronted with American and Cuban nationalism, Spanish immigrant elites in some cases “invented” national traditions even before they were embraced in the homeland. Using a transnational framework that foregrounds the complex historical relationships between Spain, Latin America, and the United States the thesis highlights the singularity of the Spanish immigrant experience in America, rooted in the legacy of the Spanish “discovery” and colonization of the Americas. This legacy offered Spanish immigrant elites the symbolic tools they needed to forge a Spanish ethnic identity in the United States. The idea of Spain and Spanish identity favored by these nineteenth-century elites, however, held less appeal for the increasing numbers of immigrants from Spain arriving at American shores in the twentieth century. Sub-national and supra-national loyalties defined many of these newcomers, some of whom espoused anarchism or supported separatist movements in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Their anticlericalism and their repudiation of Spain’s colonial wars in Morocco countered the elite’s imperial image of monarchic, Catholic Spain. This analysis helps us understand the diaspora’s enthusiasm for the proclamation of the Spanish Republic in 1931, as well as the immigrants’ overwhelming response when the Republic was attacked by General Franco’s military uprising in 1936. The unprecedented mobilization of the Spanish diaspora during the Spanish Civil War charted a singular path to Americanization. Most immigrant narratives point to World War II as one of the key moments in this process, but I argue that, in the Spanish case, the war in Spain played the crucial role. The circumstances of the war, however, complicated this process. For many Spaniards “becoming American” was not a voluntary choice, but one born of their transformation, after Franco’s victory, from emigrants into exiles
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The dominant representations of Latinx immigrants in the U.S. media do a disservice to the humanity of this group and overwhelmingly depict them in negative ways. This paper is an effort to counter these narratives and humanize the experiences of Latina immigrants. Specifically, it explores and analyzes four personal narratives from Latina women who migrated to the United States between 1950-1970s. The methodological approach in this report is qualitative and interpretive analysis, using open and axial coding. The author discusses how identities are constructed and shaped by the experiences of immigration, and connects it to extant research on power, coloniality, race, and intercultural communication
Canadian Ethnic Studies, 2009
In this paper I explore the role of popular Canadian immigration narratives in shaping the experiences and subjectivities of immigrants to Canada, and the ways in which immigrants negotiate these narratives to construct their experiences and identities. My research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted with Colombian immigrants to Canada residing in London, Ontario. I identify two narratives that characterize Canadian discourse on immigration, and explore how Colombian newcomers both apply and challenge these two narratives in talking about everyday experiences and challenges. I show that i) hegemonic immigration narratives are a powerful lens through which Colombian newcomers construct their experiences and identities, and that ii) newcomers manipulate these narratives to negotiate between the representations of immigrants in mainstream discourse and their desired self-representations. Résumé Dans cet article, j'étudie d'une part en quoi les récits populaires canadiens de l'immigration ont marqué les immigrants au Canada sur le plan subjectif et dans leur expérience, et, d'autre part, la manière dont ils travaillent leurs histoires pour structurer celle-ci ainsi que leur identité. Ma recherche s'appuie sur un travail ethnographique de terrain et des entrevues d'immigrants colombiens résidant à London en Ontario. Elle me permet d'identifier deux sortes de discours pour caractériser l'immigration au Canada et d'étudier comment les nouveaux arrivants de Colombie ont recours à ces deux approches tout en les contestant, lorsqu'ils parlent de leur expérience quotidienne et de défis auxquels ils doivent faire face. Je montre donc 1) que les narrations dominantes d'immigration servent de loupe puissante à travers laquelle les nouveaux arrivants colombiens structurent leurs expériences et leur identité, et 2) que ceux-ci manipulent ces histoires pour louvoyer entre la représentation des immigrants dans le discours de monsieur Tout le monde et l'image d'eux-mêmes qu'ils voudraient mettre en avant.
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New Mexico’s unique linguistic and ethnic heritage is the result of a complex history of colonization characterized by oppression. This chapter examines how, in this context of oppression, New Mexican Spanish speakers negotiate ethnic identities through bilingual talk-in-interaction. The study takes an ethnomethodological approach to identity as something that people ‘do’ (Widdicombe, 1998) and analyzes how New Mexican Spanish speakers ‘do’ ethnic identities. The present analysis is based on a subset of the New Mexico and Colorado Spanish Survey (Vigil & Bills, 2000), including 30 fully transcribed audio-recordings of semi-structured interviews with New Mexican Spanish speakers. A positioning analysis of these narratives reveals how New Mexican Spanish speakers enact, ascribe and reject ethnic identities. Three significant and repeated themes in the corpus include the voice of the oppressors, changing linguistic realities of younger generations of speakers and practices of crossing ...
Autobiographies at La Frontera: The Quest for Mexican-American Narrative
The Americas Review, 1988
My first publication--it changed my life! Accepted while I was finishing up my coursework at Cornell. I dedicate it to my dear friend, the late great Andrew Hewitt, Comparative Literature, '89, without whose brilliant engagement I never would have finished graduate school. Citation: Nericcio, William A. "Autobiographies at La Frontera: The Quest for Mexican-American Narrative." The Americas Review 16.3-4 (1988): 165-87.