Mexican Migrants and the Vocabulary of Transnationalism

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines elements of the vocabulary of migration in one film and two works of literature, considering how representations of Mexican migrants and their migrations can either support or resist anachronistic nationalist frameworks of citizenship. The first example, from the animated film Coco (dir. Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina. Pixar/Walt Disney, 2017), focuses on the trope of border control and the depiction of a border crossing as characters from the land of the dead attempt to “cross” into the land of the living on the Day of the Dead. The scene’s light-hearted tone serves to underscore the process of normalisation of border control and the extreme forms of state power exercised at the border. The second example draws from a more solemn narrative of border crossing, related in Graciela Limón’s The River Flows North (Houston: Arte Público, 2009), to look closely at representations of the border itself and the agency of migrants in the crossing. Finally, I look to Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Woman Hollering Creek” (Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. New York: Vintage, 1991) to explore the migration of the main character across multiple metaphorical borders. Each example highlights the power of language to either constrain or promote migrant empowerment and to extend the effective deployment of the vocabulary of transnationalism into discussions of political agency and rights.