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Language and Identity of Transnational People in Central Mexico

Costello, Elena M
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4623-9431
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620398069837245

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
Within Mexico City a community has formed known as Little L.A.. This community came to exist as United States call centers in Mexico employed English speaking repatriated Mexicans. Repatriated in that individuals were either deported by force, some returned by choice, some were US citizens who came back with family members or loved ones. A call was made for those who identified as bilingual to participate in a medical interpreting course in conjunction with The Ohio State University, a non-profit organization for repatriated people - Nuevo Commencements, and the local Mexico City government. All participants were of Mexican decent, various citizenship status, all had lived in the United States. While the objective began to train bilingual bicultural people as medical interpreters, the intensive course was forced to shift its focus slightly to look at language ideologies and language variety and language validity. While all participants had self-identified as bilingual, the language insecurity that comes from labeling in the US as English Language Learners, or as having been labeled in Mexico as not real Spanish speakers while having had their US identity stripped, of having their Mexicanidad questioned, had created a feeling of linguistic inferiority. Language was used in the community as a tool of prescriptive superiority to argue “incomplete acquisition” and not belonging, and in turn the medical interpreting course had to confront these ideologies as part of understanding the value repatriated people brought to interpretation. The cultural knowledge that is understood as a bicultural person is not one learns in a classroom, the ideologies of language registrars, the identifying of language varieties and the understanding that perhaps their Spanish was different in that it was US Spanish and that in itself was a valid language variety. That perhaps their English was different, it was US English and that they possessed the ability to navigate US English that was being exploited by the call centers.
Glenn Martinez (Advisor)
Frederick Aldama (Committee Chair)
154 p.
American Studies; Communication; Cultural Anthropology; Economics; Education; English As A Second Language; Ethnic Studies; Foreign Language; Geography; Health Care; International Relations; Labor Relations; Latin American Studies; Linguistics; Sociolinguistics
Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Medical Interpretation, Border, transnational, migration, immigration, Mexico City, Labor, Education

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Costello, E. M. (2021). Language and Identity of Transnational People in Central Mexico [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620398069837245

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Costello, Elena. Language and Identity of Transnational People in Central Mexico . 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620398069837245.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Costello, Elena. "Language and Identity of Transnational People in Central Mexico ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1620398069837245

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1620398069837245
148
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.