This article opens an ethnographic window to observe the new border crossings that thousands of indigenous people live in Latin America. To examine the complexity and political potential of transnational and translocal identities, the article starts with a case study: the reality of the indigenous Mames of Chiapas, a Mayan town in southeastern Mexico. The Mam people have experienced different migratory processes and border crossings in search of life alternatives. Their historical experience of continuous mobility across national, regional and religious borders has influenced their different conceptions of community, without necessarily transcending the territory because, as this article will show, references to the place are always present in their identity narratives