С������Ƶ

This presentation examines Mexican return migrants belonging to generation 1.5 of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.. First, I will present the context of return migration from the U.S. to Mexico; second, generation 1.5 and their linguistic profiles. Then, the analysis will disaggregate the notions that these return migrants have regarding “being Mexican” and speaking Spanish after spending most of their lives in the U.S.. Building on critical citizenship theories (Isin 2008, 2009), specifically on the concepts of status, habitus (Bourdieu, 1980), and acts, I will analyze how these return migrants experience and build notions of citizenship in Mexico while they develop additional linguistic repertoires in Spanish and acquire basic knowledge of Mexican culture. The findings of this study suggest that return migrants go through various simultaneous learning processes to acquire Mexican habitus in Mexico even though they already possess formal citizenship. This learning process, I argue, occurs amidst multiple social, linguistic, and cultural tensions that trigger important acts of (linguistic) citizenship through which returnees found their own definition of what it means to be “Mexican” in Mexico.