UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Communicative Care Across Borders: Language, Materiality, and Affect in Transnational Family Life A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Lynnette Arnold Committee: Professor Mary Bucholtz, Chair Professor John W. Du Bois Professor Marjorie Harness Goodwin, University of California Los Angeles Professor Hilary Parsons Dick, Arcadia University June 2016 The dissertation of Lynnette Arnold is approved. _________________________________________________________________ John W. Du Bois _________________________________________________________________ Marjorie Harness Goodwin _________________________________________________________________ Hilary Parsons Dick _________________________________________________________________ Mary Bucholtz, Committee Chair January 2016 Communicative Care Across Borders: Language, Materiality, and Affect in Transnational Family Life Copyright © 2016 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although I am named as the author of this dissertation, a research undertaking of this magnitude can never be completed by one person alone. On every step of this journey, I have had support from sources too numerous to name, which I seek to acknowledge here, even though I will inevitably fail to list them all. My dissertation research stands on the shoulders of intellectual giants whose work has laid the foundations upon which I build. I am grateful to scholars of transnational families, including Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Dierdre McKay, Laura Merla, Loretta Baldassar, and many others. In particular, I owe a special debt to Leisy Ábrego’s powerful sociological investigation of the experiences of children and parents in cross-border Salvadoran families. Numerous scholars of language and social life have influenced my thinking as well, but I have been especially inspired by the work of Norma Mendoza Denton, whose skillful weaving together of linguistic analyses and ethnographic insights I have tried to echo here. The questions explored in this dissertation were also inspired by conversations with researchers at a range of national and international scholarly gatherings, including the Conference on Family Life in the Age of Migration and Mobility (Norrköping University, Sweden, 2013), The UC-Wide Immigration Conference on Children, Youth, and Families in Migration (UC Los Angeles, 2013), The Seventh International Gender and Language Association Conference (Saõ Leopoldo, Brazil, 2012), the Center for Language, Interaction and Culture Conference (UC Los Angeles, 2014), and of course many sessions over the years at the annual American Anthropological Association conference. More immediately, this dissertation has been shaped by my wonderful committee members: Hilary Parsons Dick, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, and John W. Du Bois, whose vision and insight are reflected in every chapter. My chair and advisor, Mary Bucholtz, has been an incredible mentor throughout my graduate career; her unflagging support has helped me through each stage of the long process that has brought me to completion of the dissertation. I can only hope to emulate these mentoring skills with my own students in the future. The research presented in this dissertation was made possible through the financial support of several organizations including: U.C. Mexus, the Chicano Studies Institute at UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Barbara’s graduate division. I am also endebted to multi-year support provided through the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship Program of the U.S. Department of Education, which allowed me to focus my time and energies more fully on pursuing this research. In addition, this research would not have been possible without my fabulous crew of undergraduate research assistants, who over the years were fundamental in processing, indexing, and transcribing hours of data. To these students – Mayra Alvarado, Daniel Alvarenga, Andy Amaya, Jessica Baumgardner Cortes, Christina Chillin, Douglas Linares, and Yashua Ovando – thank you so much for your invaluable assistance! iv The data collection process was facilitated in great part through three young family research assistants, two with the Martínez family, and one with the Portillo family. A estos jóvenes, que me inspiran siempre con la valentía que tienen para enfrentar retos tan enormes como la migración antes de los 20 años de edad, les agradezco muchísimo por todo su apoyo con mi investigación. I also encountered incredible support through the long and at times difficult process of writing the dissertation. A writing retreat at UC Santa Barbara in Fall 2014, led by the invincible Katie Baillargeon, got me off to a wonderful start and gave me many helpful strategies for overcoming writing blocks and keeping on track. I am extremely grateful to two colleagues and friends who were especially instrumental in supporting my writing: Chandra Russo, who helped me maintain accountability to daily writing goals through a shared spreadsheet and consistent cheerleading, and Kristine Køhler Mortensen, who was the first to read every chapter and who consistently offered insightful feedback, commiseration, and support in bi-monthly Skype calls. In the process of learning and writing about transnational Salvadoran families, I have been incredibly blessed to have found such a large and supportive family of my own. These newfound relatives include compañeros de lucha who I’ve come to know in the trenches of activist work in El Salvador and the United States. I have also benefitted greatly from the companionship and support of academic colleagues within the UC Santa Barbara Linguistics Department and beyond who have provided a nurturing community within which to develop as a scholar. I am thankful to my brothers and sisters-in-law for believing in me no matter what, and for stepping in to fill the spaces left by the absence of other family members. My husband Patrick has been a consistent source of love, encouragement, and laughter: thank you for helping me remember how to find joy in the face of the inequality and injustice my work confronts me with. Finally, I wish to thank my participants, the Martínez and Portillo families, who have welcomed me into their lives and homes with open arms. Querid@s amig@s: gracias por abrirme sus corazones y sus vidas, por dejarme entrar, y por incorporarme como parte de sus familias. Sin su cariño y su confianza, yo no podría haber realizado este estudio. Por eso, yo les debo una deuda enorme, que intento siempre pagar devolviéndoles todo mi cariño y apoyo. Con este tesis, quiero poner mi granito de arena para que haya justicia para la comunidad migrante. ¡Sí se puede! v VITA OF LYNNETTE ARNOLD June 2016 EDUCATION Doctor of Philosophy, Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 2016 Master of Arts, Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 2011 Bachelor of Arts, Women’s Studies (with Honors), Mills College, May 2009 PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT Spring 2015 and Summer 2014, Instructor, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara Summer and Fall 2013, Teaching Assistant, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara Spring 2013, Instructor and Curriculm Developer, School Kids Investigating Language in Life and Society (UC Santa Barbara academic outreach program) Spring 2012, Instructor, Department of Anthropology, Santa Barbara City College PUBLICATIONS 2016 Multi-sited Ethnography and Language in the Study of Migration. Routledge Handbook of Migration and Language, with Hilary Parsons Dick. Forthcoming. 2015 The Reconceptualization of Agency through Ambiguity and Contradiction: Salvadoran Women Narrating Unauthorized Migration. Women’s Studies International Forum 52: 10-19. 2014 English for New Citizens: Contributions and Expansions of a Vocational ESL Framework. The CATESOL Journal 25(1): 129-142. 2013 Reproducing Actions, Reproducing Power: Local Ideologies and Everyday Practices of Participation at a California Community Bike Shop. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22(3): 137-158. 2012 Dialogic Embodied Action: Using Gesture to Organize Sequence and Participation in Instructional Interaction. Research on Language & Social Interaction 45(3):269-296. 2012 “Como que era Mexicano”: Cross-dialectal Passing in Transnational Migration. Texas Linguistics Forum 55: 1-9. AWARDS 2016 Best Article Prize, International Gender and Language Association 2015 Graduate Paper Prize, Honorable Mention, Society for Linguistic Anthropology 2011 Graduate Paper Prize, Honorable Mention, Society for Linguistic Anthropology 2010 Jacob K. Javits Fellowship 2009 Elizabeth Mudd Prize (for exceptional undergraduate scholarship), Mills College FIELDS OF STUDY Major Fields: Sociocultural Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology Areas of interest: mobility and transnationalism; kinship; Central America; language and migration; digital communication; language and identity; dialect and language contact; Salvadoran Spanish; bi/multilingual socialization; language and gender; language, race, and ethnicity; gesture and nonverbal communication vi ABSTRACT Communicative Care Across Borders: Language, Materiality, and Affect in Transnational Family Life by Lynnette Arnold In recent years, scholars of language and social life have grappled with the implications of increasing global connection for the field’s foundational concepts. Addressing lacunae in such research, this dissertation takes a bottom-up approach to the study of language and mobility,