Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Linguistics and Education 21 (2010) 1–13 Consuming English: How Mexican transmigrants form identities and construct symbolic citizenship through the English-language program Inglés sin Barreras [English without Barriers] Char Ullman *,1 University of Texas at El Paso, Department of Teacher Education, #804, 500 W. University Ave., El Paso, TX 79968, United States Abstract Inglés Sin Barreras is an English-language program that is highly advertised on Spanish-language television in the United States, to the point that it has become a pop-culture phenomenon. In this article, I argue that few people actually use it to learn English, but instead consume it as a symbol of national belonging. This article puts ideologies from the program itself into conversation with ethnographic data from migrants who have consumed the program. Inglés Sin Barreras is a commodity that mystifies inequitable power relations among stakeholders, and serves as a powerful symbol of the contradictions of national belonging for migrants. By synthesizing perspectives from both the program and its users, this article explores new linkages between theories of consumption and language ideology. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mexican transmigrants; Language ideologies; Commodification; National identity; English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) To consume is to make more sense of a world where all that is solid melts into air. Canclini, 2002, p. 43 1. Introduction For immigrants whose bodies, cultural practices, and languages are marginalized, migration is a “life-long process of negotiating identity, difference, and the right to fully exist in the new context” (Benmayor & Skotnes, 1994, p. 8). In this article, I explore the ways in which Spanish-speaking transmigrants 2 in Tucson, Arizona negotiate issues of identity and the struggle to belong in the United States through their consumption of the English-language program, Inglés Sin Barreras. Part of a larger ethnographic study, 3 here I analyze interviews with people who have used Inglés Sin Barreras alongside analysis of the travelogue section of Inglés Sin Barreras, Aprendamos Viajando [Let’s Learn by Traveling]. Juxtaposing the ideologies embedded in the text with the ideologies expressed by its consumers offers a way to explore the dynamic interaction between the two. Through consuming Inglés Sin Barreras, learner/consumers * Tel.: +1 575 522 5661; fax: +1 915 747 7441. E-mail address: cullman@utep.edu. 1 Char Ullman is an assistant professor of ESOL/Bilingual Education at the University of Texas at El Paso. 2 Transmigrants are people whose identity ties and social networks span national boundaries. See Basch et al. (1994) for the initial understandings of this term within the field of anthropology. 3 Data collection for this study was generously supported by the Spencer Foundation, between 2007 and 2009 and the University of Texas at El Paso’s University Research Initiative between 2006 and 2007. 0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2009.12.002