Are We Not Foreigners Here? Indigenous Nationalism in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands by Jeffrey M. Schulze (review)

historian jeffrey schulze outlines his approach to Indigenous nationalism in the borderlands history Are We Not Foreigners Here? Indigenous Nationalism in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. The contents of the book enlighten the reader regarding nationalism on a small scale in the borderlands between the United States and Mexico. Schulze discusses the Tohono O’odham and the Yaquis, each concentrated in Arizona and Sonora, and the Kickapoos, who traveled between Texas, Coahuila, and the Kickapoo Indian Reservation in Oklahoma. Schulze’s work describes migrations among the three nations, U.S. and Mexican Indigenous policies, and the federal acknowledgment process. The theory of nationalism in place within the text reflects three salient points: U.S. and Mexican recognition informs a part of Indigenous sovereignty; land forms a spiritual role in each nation’s understanding of itself; and language, religion, and culture contribute to a proper understanding of what it means to be Yaqui, Kickapoo, or Tohono O’odham.

Each of the three Indigenous nations discussed in Schulze’s history have a specific geospatial location that coincides both with their own understandings of homeland and a concomitant spiritual definition of what territoriality constitutes. The Tohono O’odham had reserved lands “given” to them by executive order and as a result of a petition from Indian Commissioner Cato Sells in 1916 (55). The lands reserved on both sides of the border remained consistent with precontact settlement patterns originated by the Tohono O’odham, although their land base was, historically, much larger. The militarization of the border attenuated Tohono O’odham territories. The Yaquis lived in the Río Yaqui Valley in southern Sonora in a fertile land that they protected by armed resistance against the Mexican military. The Yaqui nation, however, also traveled to what is now Arizona for religious events at Tubac mission outside of Tucson, Arizona. In 1978 the Department of the Interior established the Pascua Yaqui Reservation in Tucson out of recognition of Indigenous mobility and to recognize Yaqui participation in U.S. cultural and military activities (184). The Yaquis remained steadfastly loyal to the United States. The Kickapoos originated in western Pennsylvania and were driven west to Michigan by the Haudenosaunee in the late eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, the Kickapoos left Michigan and traveled from Illinois to Kansas, where they settled once again. The U.S. military forced many but not all Kickapoos onto a reservation in Indian Territory in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Some Kickapoos, dissatisfied with their treatment by the U.S. government, fled to Texas and thence to Coahuila, where they settled at the Hacienda del Nacimiento in 1850. In the 1980s, Kickapoos who lived under the international bridge between Piedras Negras in Coahuila and Eagle Pass in Texas were granted lands by the U.S. Department of the Interior in order to facilitate their receipt of federal programs (130–31). Schulze clarifies the Kickapoo predicament in the tribe’s relationship with external governments.

A valuable addition to the history of these three Indigenous peoples is their relationship with the U.S.-Mexican border. As Schulze reveals, these three nations have living tribal communities in both the United States and Mexico. The legal status of Indigenous peoples was such that prior to the current debacle at the border they could travel relatively freely across the international line. Schulze recognizes the inherent struggles these nations have with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents under the Trump administration in exercising their rights as pre-European contact peoples to travel between their communities on either side of the border. The author may in the future want to include discussion of various other U.S.-Mexican borderlands people, such as the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches.

Schulze’s research is meticulous, thoughtful, and descriptive. He begins the book with a description of Yaqui resistance to the Mexican government and a description...