What it means to be “one of us”: Discourses of national identity in the United States

Abstract In recent years, the transnational movement of people has resulted in increasing tension and debates about national identity. The present research utilized a discourse analytic approach to examine accounts of national identity in the U.S. among native-born U.S. residents, Mexicans living in Mexico, and Mexicans living in the U.S. Our analysis focused on two sets of diverging accounts of national identity. A first set involved participants' explanations of national identity as natural/essential, “felt”, or conditional, which served to either constrain how “American” immigrants could be or allowed for a more inclusive definition of national identity. A second set of accounts involved participants theorizing the national polity as a multicultural or monocultural space which functioned to construct national boundaries as permeable or reinforced (White) American dominance. These patterns of talk emerged across all interviews, although U.S. participants attended to more flexible and dilemmatic (e.g. inclusionary and exclusionary) accounts of national identity. We discuss the implications for the complexity of national identity.