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  • At the Border of Empires: The Tohono O’odham, Gender, and Assimilation, 1880–1934 by Andrae M. Marak, Laura Tuennerman
  • Brenden W. Rensink
At the Border of Empires: The Tohono O’odham, Gender, and Assimilation, 1880–1934. By Andrae M. Marak and Laura Tuennerman. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 2013. Pp. xvi, 211. $55.00. ISBN 978-0-8165-2115-9.)

The history of the Tohono O’odham peoples of southern Arizona and northern Sonora present a unique opportunity for comparative study. They are one of a handful of indigenous peoples directly bisected by international borders—in this case, the U.S.-Mexican border. As their lives unfolded adjacent to—and often straddling—the border, Tohono O’odhams faced two very different sets of federal policy, assimilation efforts, and economic development. Their history is a rich ground for extensive transnational and comparative scholarship. In At the Border of Empires, Andrae Marak and Laura Tuennerman carve out a focused analysis of how Tohono O’odham gender norms and their social roles in relation to American and Mexican assimilation and reform efforts amongst their peoples.

As late-nineteenth-century America began to shift its Indian policy away from warfare and toward forced assimilation, the Tohono O’odham were, quite literally, nearly off the map of American interest and jurisdiction. They would not, however, escape efforts by white reformers to impose various aspects of the majority American culture upon them. Marak and Tuennerman use gender as a lens to investigate how reformers approached this undertaking and how it affected Tohono O’odham individuals, families, and communities. After a useful introduction to Tohono O’odham history, the authors present four topical chapters, followed by a compareative [End Page 383] look at the experiences of individuals on the Mexican side of the line. Chapters consider the regulation of “vice” (as determined by white reformers), the imposition of majority-culture marriage and moral systems, gendered education efforts among tribal youth, and gendered vocational training amongst adults. In all four of these chapters, the text’s focus is narrow but insightful. By delimiting the scope of their project, Marak and Tuennerman are able to filter out complicating factors that could otherwise muddy the waters of already murky histories. Throughout, they convincingly position gendered contexts as central to the complex interplay between the goals and efforts of Anglo reformer goals to “Americanize” their wards and the traditional Tohono O’odham culture and its proponents being stressed thereby. Just as other authors have done in colonial and postcolonial studies of Euro-indigenous relations, gender analysis provides intimate accounts at the micro level, as opposed to the macro level. Whereas policy histories are often impersonal and lack a clear sense of humanity, the gendered approach opens scenes of the conflict between Tohono O’odhams and assimilation reformers at their most personal and vulnerable levels. Often, available accounts only get us to the door, behind which these scenes fully unfold, but Marak and Tuennerman are able to give a fair picture of what is happening. Perhaps, access to more indigenous voices would more fully get us into the room to view the introduction of assimilation policy and indigenous resistance with greater clarity.

The narrow focus of the text is both a strength and weakness. Throughout, additional questions outside of the gender analysis beg consideration and, at times, would provide useful contexts for the study of gender. The volume is slim, totaling only 147 pages of text. Although expansion could distract from what is otherwise a carefully constructed scope, occasional pauses to offer broader contexts may bring the picture into clearer focus. This is most apparent in the final chapter, which considers Mexican comparisons. The counterpoint is fascinating and should be explored further. Scholars of indigenous studies, borderlands history, and transnational history will welcome this text as a small but powerful example of what can be accomplished in a field overflowing with similar research topics to be explored and stories to be told.

Brenden W. Rensink
Joseph Smith Papers
Salt Lake City, UT
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