You are what you eat. The essence of being is our identity, so what we choose to eat has a large impact on who we are. By defining identity and applying these definitions in relation to food we can discover how we identify through the foods we eat, creating a food identity. For Mexican Americans, it is la comida que sí se come! I have classified the following as our most basic forms of identity: mental versus the physical or biological, and individual versus group. Within the group identity stem the facets of race, ethnicity, nationality, language and culture that all make up a Mexican American identity. By thoroughly exploring the four basic classifications of identity we are able to apply the methods of identity creation towards our interactions with food, from our first learned experiences as children, to later cooking for our own children, which all lead to the creation of our food identities. Once food identity is understood it can be applied specifically to the Mexican American experience, therefore exploring how the food choices that Mexican Americans make contribute towards a unique food identity. Just like the Mexican American self identity, Mexican American food identity is neither “Mexican” nor “American,” and yet it can be both. Like self identity, this food identity consists of a long historical background, embracing dual nationalities and combining life experiences with culture. It is also heavily influenced by family- familia- more so than a generic food identity. / text

This autoethnography narrative examines my journey as a first-generation Mexican immigrant woman from birth, through completion of the doctorate degree at California State University, San Bernardino. The purpose in writing this autoethnography is to present a personalized account of my experiences growing up, in communicating between two languages, the structural and personal motivators behind maintaining a heritage language (Spanish), and to reflect, in my experience, how I have negotiated with multiple social identities, including ethnic, academic, and bilingual identities. In this self-study, I bring the reader closer to Mexican-American identity, language, and culture. Specifically, this qualitative analysis of Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) and identity will examine the following questions: a) How did I perceive and negotiate my bilingual identity?; b) What obstacles did I face when speaking English, Spanish or both?; c) What role does SHL have in identity development? I have chosen a qualitative approach, specifically an autoethnography, to answer these questions in order to add to existing literature rooted in the lived experience of Spanish heritage language maintenance. This approach allows me to be the researcher, subject, and narrator of the study, and allows me to reflect on my education as a bilingual and bicultural immigrant student. The autoethnographer’s subjective experiences (my stories) become the primary data and encompass looking at a culture through the lens of the researcher. While searching for themes written in vignettes, my journey is an account of two worlds, which coexist, in the infinite intricacy of language learning, speaking, thinking, and being.

This dissertation investigates how Regional Mexican radio in the U.S. tracks and drives changes in Mexican-American identity by combining different musical genres to create composite portraits of its audiences. Regional Mexican radio, which plays a mixture of ranchera, norteño, banda, and other regional Mexican genres to target a largely working-class audience of recent immigrants, is currently the most popular Spanish-language format in the U.S. Programmers for these stations act as mediators, navigating the public relation between notions of Latino identity constructed by national Spanish-language media conglomerates and local demographics. By modifying the generic composition of their playlists to strike a compromise between the two, they both monitor and produce the sociomusical categories that distinguish their listenership. Ethnographic research at Regional Mexican radio stations in Austin and San Antonio demonstrate the role that institutional organization plays in creating programming. National conglomerates that increasingly own these stations determine the broad outline of the industry, but local programmers make most decisions about programming content. Based on a historical review of Tejano radio, I argue that the musical mixtures created by Spanish-language programmers have responded to both past and present social and economic challenges facing Mexican-American immigrants. Through detailed analysis programming at five Regional Mexican stations, I argue that each variety of music played signifies regional, generational and gendered variations of Mexican-American identity that stations combine in different proportions to reflect local listenership. I also explore the role of station-sponsored events in gathering information about listeners. Events encourage listeners to embody their status as part of the Regional Mexican audience, a concept ultimately constructed by the radio stations. Ultimately, this dissertation adds to existing literatures on Spanish-language media, radio and Mexican-American music. / text

La presencia de dos o más lenguas en textos audiovisuales simboliza un encuentro intercultural entre realidades sociales y culturales distintas. Asimismo, en los productos audiovisuales, el multilingüismo se ha considerado como el fenómeno tanto lingüístico y social que constituye parte central en la narrativa de la trama por cuestiones identitarias o distintivas. En el contexto de la serie Gentefied (2020), el bilingüismo constituye un rasgo identitario representativo de la comunidad mexicoestadounidense asentada en Estados Unidos. Por ello, la presente investigación pretende analizar la traducción del bilingüismo inglés-español y su impacto en la representación de la identidad mexicoestadounidense en el doblaje al francés de la serie. La investigación es un estudio de caso, debido a que busca explicar y analizar el fenómeno lingüístico y de representación de identidad que se retrata en la serie. Para ello, se recurrirá a las técnicas de recolección de información como el análisis de contenido y el análisis textual contrastivo. La primera permitirá la identificación de las unidades de análisis del texto fuente en spanglish que evidencian rasgos representativos de los personajes; y la segunda, el contraste entre ellas y las unidades de análisis del texto meta en frañol. / The presence of two or more languages in audiovisual texts symbolizes an intercultural encounter between social and cultural realities. Likewise, in audiovisual products, multilingualism has been considered a linguistic and social phenomenon that constitutes a central part in the narrative of the plot due to identity or distinctive reasons. In the context of the series, bilingualism constitutes a representative identity trait of the Mexican-American community settled in the United States. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the translation of English-Spanish bilingualism and its impact on the representation of Mexican-American identity in the French dubbing of the series Gentefied (2020). The research is a case study as it seeks to explain and analyze the linguistic phenomenon and identity representation portrayed in the series. For this purpose, we will resort to data collection techniques such as content analysis and contrastive textual analysis. The former will allow the identification of the units of analysis of the source text in Spanglish that show representative traits of the characters; and the second, the contrast between them and the units of analysis of the target text in Frañol. / Trabajo de investigación