Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá: Constructing National Identity in the case of Jonathan González

First-generation Mexican-Americans who are born in the US to immigrant parents often find themselves at a crossroad constantly negotiating their ethnic identity. One of those junctions where Mexican-Americans often have to navigate their identity is in the world of soccer, in particular when it comes to rooting for the US national team or the Mexican national team. Scholars call this transnational concept Entre Dos Mundos–Between Two Worlds (Bacallao and Smokowski 2005; Campbell 2005; Gutierrez 1996; Menjivar 2002). Jonathan González is one of those Mexican-Americans, who in 2018 announced his decision to play for the Mexican national team instead of the US national team. González’s announcement garnered much media attention both in the US and in Mexico. Using critical discourse analysis, I explain the discourse around González’s announcement to play for Mexico positions González in the borderlands (Anzaldua 1987) and I argue that sport journalists in the US and Mexico construct alternative versions of González’s national identity while neither recognize full belonging in two worlds.