"for My Children:" Constructing Family and Navigating the State in the U.S.-Mexico Transnation‪.‬

The border crossing of Susana's children--a story I have heard several times, from the perspective of Susana, her children, and their grandmother-reveals the changing character of transnational kinship against the backdrop of state power. The ethnographic study of the negotiations between Mexican migrants and state regimes provides a starting point for understanding how the U.S. state structures migrant families, as well as the ways transnational Mexicans, of all ages, navigate the shifting terrain of state power, building lives and kin relations in the U.S.-Mexico transnation. Mexican (im)migrant families and communities live within and across two nation-states, and their lives both transcend and are separated by the U.S.-Mexico Border. Such transnationality (Ong 1999) results in new kinship configurations and ways of caring for children, as well as a diverse range of experiences that shape children's lives. Within this transnational community, children--ranging from infants to teenagers--reside in, and migrate to and from, both Mexico and the United States. Migrant children move transnationally in diverse ways: by themselves, with one another, with their parents, under the care of extended family or community members, or with a coyote or a coyota [a man or woman paid to facilitate entry to the United States]. In many ways, these transnational Mexican children are, as Peggy Levitt has described, "brought up across borders" (2001: 75), even when they have never migrated to the United States. This discussion is based on on-going transnational ethnographic research that studies the intersection of gender, family, and nation among Mexican (im)migrants with ties to San Marcos, a small, rural community or "rancho" in the state of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, and several migrant destinations in the U.S. Southwest including Albuquerque, New Mexico; Dallas, Texas; and San Diego, California. My project is ethnographic and qualitative, and has included interviews and life histories, participant observation, collaborative and visual methodologies, and transnational fieldwork at different sites where members of the network are situated, locales in both Mexico and the United States. I have conducted binational field research from 1997 to the present--based in Albuquerque, New Mexico from 1997 through 2001 and during 2002-2003; based in Mexico during 2001-2002, and the summers of 2004, 2006, and 2008; and based in San Diego, California from 2003 to 2005. Over the course of my research, I have interviewed approximately 200 transmigrants, lived with several Mexican families, and attended events, including weddings, quinceaneras, baptisms, first communions, and holiday celebrations in both countries. Finally, I have spent time with transnational Mexicans as they experience their daily lives--in their homes, at their workplaces, in social settings, and traveling between the United States and Mexico. In order to protect individuals with various legal statuses in the United States, I use pseudonyms throughout this paper, for both collaborators and the rancho where I conduct research.