Anti-malinchismo against the Mexican-Transnational: How to transform a limiting border

Abstract

The present critical essay aims to give visibility to the social injustice experienced by transnational youth migrating to their parent’s country. Engaging poscolonial theory, we recognize how Mexicans inside Mexico have a righteous anger toward colonization. However, we argue that the national myth of Malinche as a traitor induces a decolonial tendency to further oppress Mexicans who are mostly simply trying to survive when they live in the U.S. and return to Mexico. We take the myth of Malinche, acknowledging its historic strengths and then map that onto returning transnationals. We analyze testimonies of Mexican transnational returnees, stories of intense pain and confusion about how their identities were or were not embraced upon return to Mexico. At the same time, they often demonstrated a self-awareness in which they claimed a rich form of varying hybridities about who they were and who they currently are. We argue the discourse needs to shift and that the hybridity returnees bring is one from which we can all learn toward better engaging an increasingly multicultural world.