Divided Peoples

Policy, Activism, and Indigenous Identities on the U.S.-Mexico Border

Christina Leza

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780816543212, 9780816537006
• eBook ISBN: 9780816540556
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The border region of the Sonoran Desert, which spans southern Arizona in the United States and northern Sonora, Mexico, has attracted national and international attention. But what is less discussed in national discourses is the impact of current border policies on the Native peoples of the region. There are twenty-six tribal nations recognized by the U.S. federal government in the southern border region and approximately eight groups of Indigenous peoples in the United States with historical ties to Mexico—the Yaqui, the O'odham, the Cocopah, the Kumeyaay, the Pai, the Apaches, the Tiwa (Tigua), and the Kickapoo.

Divided Peoples addresses the impact border policies have on traditional lands and the peoples who live there—whether environmental degradation, border patrol harassment, or the disruption of traditional ceremonies. Anthropologist Christina Leza shows how such policies affect the traditional cultural survival of Indigenous peoples along the border. The author examines local interpretations and uses of international rights tools by Native activists, counterdiscourse on the U.S.-Mexico border, and challenges faced by Indigenous border activists when communicating their issues to a broader public.

Through ethnographic research with grassroots Indigenous activists in the region, the author reveals several layers of division—the division of Indigenous peoples by the physical U.S.-Mexico border, the divisions that exist between Indigenous perspectives and mainstream U.S. perspectives regarding the border, and the traditionalist/nontraditionalist split among Indigenous nations within the United States. Divided Peoples asks us to consider the possibilities for challenging settler colonialism both in sociopolitical movements and in scholarship about Indigenous peoples and lands.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface: The “Native” Anthropologist
• Introduction
• 1. The Binational Yoeme (Yaqui) Nation
• 2. The “Desert People” on Militarized Desert Lands
• 3. An Indigenous Alliance on the Border
• 4. Domestic and International Border-Crossing Policy
• 5. Indigenous Identities on the U.S.-Mexico Border
• 6. The Border in Indigenous Activist Counterdiscourse
• Conclusion: Maintaining, Creating, and Re-creating Ties
• Appendix A. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Appendix B. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• Appendix C. International Labor Organization (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Author