ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the working definition of ethnicity as set forth by C. Fought as a construct "that is highlighted most clearly where ingroup/outgroup boundaries are part of the context''. It discusses of language and ethnicity within a particular community's ideologies about such boundaries. Linguists have long noted that schools in the United States undermine immigrant languages, although they also simultaneously struggle to teach these languages to non-native speakers. Investigations into personal narratives in New Mexican Spanish speaker interviews allow for a deeper insight into these processes and their long-lasting effects, especially given the strict oppression and punishment inflicted upon students in public education. Crossing arises because people generally speak like those they want to be like. The close analysis of the performance of ethnic identity in New Mexican Spanish speaker narratives demonstrates how New Mexican Spanish speakers enact, ascribe, and reject ethnic identities through code-switching, crossing, and passing.
