Spirituality among Mexican Transnational Teaching Youth: Towards Decolonialization and Humanization of Research

Abstract

The ultimate purpose of this study is to illustrate the transnational journey of Mexican populations in terms of their spirituality. With this goal, I designed this study based on decolonial and humanizing principles of testimonios epistemologies (Calderón-Berumen et al. 2022) to describe the spiritual trajectories of Mexican transnational returnees pursuing a teaching degree in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Based on interviews, written questionnaires, and the teaching journal of the author, I suggest that transnationals understand that spiritual and religious development is different for Mexican communities on both sides of the border. On the one hand, transnationals realized that religiosity—rather than spirituality—is present in their home communities in Mexico. On the other hand, transnationals are aware that spirituality is required to cope with the adversities that Mexican communities face in the United States. For this reason, Mexican transnationals used online interactions to promote spiritual healing among those “left” in the north side of the border. Because spirituality has been traditionally ignored by most U.S. academia, this article supports the importance of humanizing scholarly research to understand the complexity of Mexican transnational populations.