Performing the Nation: Unauthorized Mexican Migration and the Politics of Language Use and the Body along the US-Mexico Border

• Published in: Ethnos Vol. 80; no. 2; pp. 223 - 247
• Main Author: Ullman, Char
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 15-03-2015
• Subjects: Arizona; Body politic; Borders; Citizenship; Environmental Movements; identities; Identity; Illegal immigration; Immigrants; Language; Language use; Mexican Americans; Mexicans; Mexico; Migrants; Migration; Politics; Semiotics; U.S.A; Unauthorized migrants; United States of America
• ISSN: 0014-1844; 1469-588X
• DOI: 10.1080/00141844.2013.831941

Given the harsh environment for Mexican migrants in the US state of Arizona, migrants must think carefully about instantiating their identities in White public space through clothing, bodily movements, and language. This article explores the ways some unauthorized Mexican migrants in Arizona perform belonging to the USA by performing Chicano. Performing Chicano means passing as a US citizen, and migrants' well-being can depend upon the recognition of those performances. Other unauthorized migrants perform the Supermexicana, to pass as Mexicans who are shopping in the USA, and need to hide the fact that they clandestinely live there. This article examines how some migrants perform a commitment to the USA in public while privately disavowing it, and how others perform a commitment to Mexico that they simply cannot have. This analysis argues that the experiences of unauthorized migrants in the USA can be productively seen through the lens of national performativity.