"
Divided Peoples is a poignant critique of how colonial and national geographic boundaries have affected Indigenous autonomy and reconfigured alliances and politics. Leza
invites readers to consider the lived experiences of Indigenous communities along the Borderlands and the grassroots efforts initiated to create new cartographies of belonging and cooperation."—Diana Negrín,
New Mexico Historical Review
"Voices of Indigenous activists are centered in this accessible ethnography, which offers an imperative exploration into the ways Indigenous peoples, cultures, families, work and land are negatively impacted by US border policies."—Karla Strand,
Ms. Magazine
"Christina Leza’s
Divided Peoples offers a compelling examination of the fraught U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Given recent times and contentious debates about immigration, her thorough examination is much needed and timely, especially from Indigenous perspectives."—Edison Cassadore,
Tribal College Journal
"As the flourishing field of Indigenous studies continues to examine the ways in which Native peoples enact a transnational politics of sovereignty, books like Divided Peoples are integral. As nation-states continue to run roughshod over the histories, cultures, and rights of border peoples (Native and non-Native), books like Divided Peoples are imperative."—Nicholas Barron,
Native American and Indigenous Studies
"Through [this] book, we see the complexities and contradictions of Indigenous activism and the multiple negotiations of identity and community boundaries necessary to achieve rights of mobility and passage of Indigenous peoples."—Rocío Gil,
American Anthropologist
“At this time more than ever, an understanding of the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border needs to be understood from the perspectives of Indigenous peoples of the region. Christina Leza’s book provides us with deep insight into the responses of Native activists to the militarization of the border.”—Baron L. Pineda, author of Shipwrecked Identities: Navigating Race on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast
“Divided Peoples delivers timely scholarship on the border region while constructively critiquing anthropological framings of how indigenous communities survive in settler colonial contexts.”—Joyce Bennett, American Ethnologist
“Leza examines the many complexities in indigenous border identities and the various challenges activists face in overcoming intra- and intercommunity divisions. Hopefully,
Divided Peoples will provide a ready blueprint for Native peoples to challenge nation-state restrictions on transborder movements.”—
T. P. Bowman, Choice