Transborderism and the Mexico-U.S. Border: Exploring Transborderism Through the Perspectives of Pupils and Students at the Cali-Baja Region

This thesis explores transborderism and its practices at the Cali-Baja region through the perspectives of transborder pupils and students living in Mexico, but attending school in the U.S. This population crossed the Mexico-U.S. border through the land Ports of Entry in Mexicali-Calexico and Tijuana-San Diego. The narratives of documented border crossers, particularly transborder learners, have been missing in the Mexico-U.S. border scholarship. Such invisibility limits our understanding of the region. I claim that transborder practices for academic purposes present challenges with binational implications.

The empirical data was collected through ten months of fieldwork in Mexico and in the state of California. The ethnographic-bend methods included in-depth interviews with twenty-seven former transborder learners, two policymakers in international education, and one scholar in the field of transborderism. The findings reveal the following: (i) the link between a reconfigured American dream and the reasons for becoming a transborder figure via education, (ii) the hardship of crossing the border makes this process the most difficult part of the practice and, (iii) school dynamics do not reflect transborder practices at this region.

The original contributions put forward by this research are three-fold. Theoretically, it contributes to the emerging literature of transborderism in the Mexico-U.S. border by focusing on the practice through the figure of transborder learners. Additionally, a novel inter-city analysis between Mexicali-Calexico and Tijuana-San Diego is put forward discussing the adaptive capacities of transborderism. Empirically, this research reveals specific challenges that transborder learners face affecting their health and academic performances. Politically, a Specific Agreement of Cooperation in Transborder Education between Mexico and California is proposed in support of these learners. Such an Agreement would also contribute to the development of a transborder perspective reflecting the Cali-Baja region reality in binational and multi-level policies.