Writing and rhetoric along the U.S.-Mexico border

This article explores the rhetorical patterns of writers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The article first explores the complex history of the border region, and grounded in this cross-border history, the article rejects border theories that privilege the local and U.S. view. Instead, based on the Human Capability Approach, this article explores five "functionings" or typified rhetorical patterns or genres on the border and examines how writers along the border are capable of working in a variety of these functionings. It grounds this analysis in health communications but ends by discussing how different Spanish-English multilinguals manifest different variations of these five functionings based on their individual rhetorical and cultural histories.