Parteindo la Madre: Re-Visioning Citizenship, Borders, Ideals of Mobility, and Be-Longing Among El Alberto's Hñähñu

• In Event: Communication Research in the U.S./Mexican Border Region

Abstract

Against transnational perspectives that celebrate the relatively new influence of migrants on nation-state building projects across geographic divides, my paper problematizes ideals of mobility associated with the “transmigrant” body in relation to the Hñähñu, a subaltern, rural, indigenous community in central Mexico, who has lost approximately 80 percent of their population to undocumented migration. A tribal clause requires Hñähñu men and unmarried Hñähñu women to perform a minimum of one-year of community service to heir pueblo every eight years. This service, which guarantees Hñähñu their citizenship and its attendant privileges and protections, is for a vast majority, the sine qua non of what it means to belong to El Alberto. So strong is the sense of belonging to a place and to a people that for the last thirty years, Hñähñu have been making the journey back to El Alberto to complete this obligation, despite risks of not being able to return to the US. I explore how intensification of border security is putting new pressures on the tribal delegation of El Alberto, who must now reconsider longstanding laws that were created to preserve the integrity of their community during an era where migration wasn't as policed as it is now. My paper also considers how decisions to return to the pueblo or to remain in the US are shaping the cultural and economic topography of El Alberto, a pueblo that depends on remittances for survival. To these ends, my paper explores how ideas of citizenship among the Hñähñu are being adapted and re-imagined to accommodate a people separated by geographic divides, but for whom transnational ties to their pueblo remain strong. This component of my investigation has broad implications with respect to the longevity of a community that has “lost” the majority its members to undocumented migration.

Author

• Michaela Django Walsh, U of California - San Diego