Emerging from the Third Space: Narratives of a Second-Generation Salvadoreña

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 7:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Cultivating Resistance and Belonging: Latinx Educational Pathways, Counterspaces, and Cultural Survival

Abstract

This study examines the identity construction of second-generation Salvadorans in the U.S., focusing on the narrative of one woman, Arely (pseudonym), the daughter of civil war refugees. Grounded in Borderlands theory and Transnationalism, this critical narrative analysis explores how she navigates hybrid identities shaped by familial trauma, cultural silences, and resistance through language, storytelling, and memory. Arely’s experiences illuminate how second-generation Salvadorans negotiate belonging across borders and generations. This work contributes to the limited scholarship on Salvadoran-American identity. It challenges the “Culture of Silences” that obscures their histories, offering a deeper understanding of cultural survival, identity formation, and intergenerational knowledge.

Author

• Jessica Flores, University of Colorado - Boulder