This thought piece explored the scholarship that expands and disrupts ideas of citizenship. In U.S. civic education classrooms, citizenship is viewed through the lens of a legal model that does not accurately reflect mixed-status classrooms in U.S.-Mexico border schools. We argue for a cathartic pedagogy that normalizes the discussion of alternatives to dominant citizenship identities in K-20 classrooms. Thus, we drew on borderlands-centered pedagogy, and critical pedagogies of counterstory and testimony to put counter-narration in conversation with cultural citizenship. We invite educators to use any combination of these educational principles to empower students in their Borderlands classrooms.