(Re)Bordering the Civic Imaginary: Rhetoric, Hybridity, and Citizenship in La Gran Marcha

Though the drive to limit US citizenship often takes shape through the symbolic and material exclusion of oaliens,o immigrants also engage in rhetorical struggles over the limits of the US civic imaginary. This essay examines one such challenge to the bordering logics of US citizenshipLa Gran Marcha, one of the largest immigration protests of 2006. Rather than see the protest as wholly oalien,o as it was conceived of by anti-immigrant forces, or as purely oAmerican,o as an attempt for mere recognition, La Gran Marcha can best be understood as performing a hybrid US citizenship. This hybrid rhetoric problematizes contemporary understandings of citizenship and elucidates immigrants' agency within US democracy.