The Borderland/ La Frontera Within

Senior Honors Thesis Project

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Prospectus

As a Chicana, I experience the U.S. Mexico border within myself. As I try to hold my Mexican identity and my American identity at the same time, I can feel different parts of myself clashing. How does this interior battle impact the way native and heritage speakers talk in the U.S. within my family?

I will use my Chicana lens to write from a Chicana feminist perspective on the women in my family who have migrated to the states, grown up as heritage speakers, and are third-generation immigrants. Analyzing their language, code-switching, and experiences, I will learn what it means to let the body inform academic writing.

To be Chicana in this space and time means embracing Spanish language at all levels of acquisition and fluency, advocating for Chicana bodies to take up space in academia, and fighting to hold all parts of your identity at once.

Research

Raw Interviews and Transcripts

The initial part of my research was to collect interviews from my family members for two reasons:

Podcast

Half of my final thesis product are these three podcast episodes, which explore my feelings post-interviews and how the interview process has impacted my relationship with my Chicana identity.

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