Magali Muria Tunon's Hybrid Identity

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In Magali Muria Tunon’s dissertation Enforcing Boundaries: Globalization, State Power and the Geography of Cross-border Consumption in Tijuana, Mexico, she uses the phrase “hybrid identities” to describe a group of people whose culture is a mixture of traits from two different cultures. In the quote above, Tunon provides an example of a hybrid identity by naming Tijuanenses, inhabitants of the Mexican city of Tijuana, as people who developed hybrid identities. She describes how Tijuanenses regularly crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, which is located near Tijuana, and entered the U.S. in order to shop. This constant trade and communication with Americans caused Tijuanenses to grow familiar with American customs. Tunon claims that Tijuanenses eventually stopped considering American “material culture” as foreign since it was such a ubiquitous part of their daily lives (97). This acceptance of American society led Tijuanenses to adopt certain parts of American culture and combine them with Mexican principles, creating a new hybrid identity. Thus, Tunon defines a hybrid identity as a “distinct local identity” that is formed …show more content…

She also presumes that trade must be accompanied by communication, which is necessary in order for commerce and the transfer of information, such as cultural values, to occur. Based on these assumptions, any gradual differences in the spending habits of Tijuanenses could be due to shifting societal values, which could further be caused by the integration of American values into the culture of Tijuana. That is why Tunon believes that she is justified in thinking about the formation of hybrid identities in terms of the shopping expeditions that Tijuanenses went on and how their purchases changed over time as they interacted more with American

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