Lessons of Belonging and Citizenship Among Hijas/os de Inmigrantes Mexicanos

Abstract

de inmigrantes Mexicanos (daughters and sons of Mexican immigrants in JL ^ the U.S.). This article is based on a larger study I conducted on how U.S. born young adults learn to form a sense of national in relation to their U.S-Mexican communities in the greater borderland areas1 of California. My social analysis, based on ethnographic histories, interviews, and fieldwork participation with hijas/os de inmigrantes Mexicanos, shows how meanings of citizenship are broadly learned and negotiated in a xenophobic U.S. society. For example, Consuelo was one of several hijas/os de inmigrantes Mexicanos who openly related how ideologies and everyday life experiences with family shaped a sense of citizenship (i.e., social, cultural, and civic). Narratives of immigrant Mexican offspring concerning national are important because they attest to the power and inequalities immigrant families and communities experience in their quest for social mobility and well-being in the U.S. As members of a significant racialized and marginalized group, their narratives speak to what Suzanne Oboler (2006: 10-11) calls the dilemma of belonging and the structural conditions that Latino families and community members face in attempting to become socially, culturally, and politically embedded in society. I will provide a context for the use of cultural citizenship as a framework for this study. Based on the narratives of hijas/os de inmigrantes Mexicanos related to their

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