Neocolonialism is a set of economic, cultural, and social principles that emerges from colonialism. In America, neocolonialism is the reconfiguring of colonialism, an ideology used during the founding of the United States to subjugate and eradicate Indigenous peoples who inhabited the territories now designated as America for thousands of years. Because the material and cultural project of America is an ongoing one, and Indigenous peoples continue to survive and exist within it, neocolonialism emerged as a strategy to adapt historical colonial tactics and logics to accomplish contemporary goals.

According to Fajardo-Anstine, gentrification is one key neocolonial force, which continues to displace the lives and erase the experiences, cultures, and communities of contemporary Indigenous and Latinx neighborhoods—in favor of creating profits for both corporations and local governments. This is the same logic as historical colonialism, which sought to conquer and rob Indigenous peoples of their lands, ways of life, and culture, for the ruling, White settler class to usurp and take over the land and extract profit from it. This process necessitates the violent erasure of Indigenous peoples, in both a material and psychological sense. Many of the characters within Sabrina & Corina must directly face off with the forces of neocolonialism, as it shapes and infiltrates both their daily lives and their internal lives.