Ethnic Studies

Between the years 2005-2010, 1.4 million Mexican migrants residing in the US migrated back to reside in Mexico. The state of Oaxaca, a primary return destination, holds the highest and most diverse population of Indigenous nations in Mexico, with especially strong forms of communal organization locally and in diaspora. This project consists of both a documentary film in progress and an Ethnic Studies honors thesis composed of interviews with migrants who have returned to their ancestral homelands in Oaxaca after living in the US for several years. In the record of migration literature, theorizations of return migration have centered around settler colonial, nation-state forces of immobilization and confinement, thus, overlooking and oversimplifying the complex affective experiences of return. In contrast to such literature, my methodology and theoretical framework, grounded in Cine Comunitario (communal filmmaking) and Border Abolition, intentionally facilitate relationship building and long-form storytelling, politically structuring individuals within community knowledges and histories–rather than in state-centered approaches–as means for self-representation. This study is formed around several core enquiries, such as: What are the contradicting affective processes that Indigenous Oaxacan migrants experience when returning to their ancestral homelands? and How do they (we) understand concepts of home, ancestry, identity and belonging?