National identifications of transnational students from the USA on the northwest border of Mexico

Abstract Over the past two decades, more than half a million children—mostly born and educated in the USA—have arrived in Mexico from the USA because of their parents' return migration. The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between their national identification, school trajectories and US nationality in a border city with high return migration. The methodology is based on the analysis of a school survey and semi‐structured interviews with transnational students. The results show that: binational identification was higher when students had intermediate schooling in both countries; identification with the USA decreased and identification with Mexico increased with more years in Mexican schools; and school trajectories were more relevant than nationality in defining binational identification. The majority of students identified as binational because their migration histories and transnational life experiences allowed them to be bicultural, despite the diffusion of mononational ideologies in schools.