The immigration struggle is also an Indigenous struggle.
—Shining Soul, “Papers”
Much of the process of decolonization is to understand Indigenous reality.
—Cornel Pewewardy, “Foreword,” The Militarization of Indian Country
Abstract
This article situates the US-Mexico border and anti-immigration law in the context of US imperialism and settler colonialism. It centers Tohono O’odham land, presence, and Indigenous sovereignty in an examination of Latin@/x migration, border policies, and im/migrant rights. Contributing to scholarship in critical Latinx indigeneities, this article contends that the structures and mechanisms of border militarization are inherently anti-Indigenous. While targeting migrants and refugees who often are Indigenous elsewhere, this racial profiling happens on Native land and against Native peoples. The article further examines discourses of sanctuary in relation to Indigenous sovereignty to spotlight the necessity of integrating Indigenous perspectives within im/migrant rights discourses.
Resumen
Este artículo ubica la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México y las leyes antiinmigrantes en el contexto del imperialismo estadounidense y el colonialismo de asentamiento. Centra las tierras de los Tohono O’odham, la presencia y la soberanía de los pueblos indígenas en un análisis de la migración latina, las políticas fronterizas y los derechos migratorios. El trabajo aporta a los estudios de las indigeneidades latinas cruciales arguyendo que las estructuras y los mecanismos de la militarización fronteriza son intrínsecamente antiindígenas. Aunque dirigida a los migrantes y refugiados que a menudo son indígenas en otros lugares, esta caracterización racial ocurre en tierras nativas contra pueblos nativos. El artículo además examina los discursos de asilo en relación con la soberanía indígena para resaltar la necesidad de integrar las perspectivas indígenas a los discursos por los derechos migratorios.
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Notes
Like the Tohono O’odham and Lipan Apache, Yoeme and Kickapoo Nations are also dissected and bisected by the US-Mexico border.
I use the language of “im/migrant justice” to encompass the entire spectrum of immigration and migration politics, organizing, activism, and scholarship. Connecting Indigenous struggles with im/migrant struggles requires a vast recalibration of praxis regarding im/migrant justice that is beyond the scope of this paper.
The Who We Are column on the right side of the site reads: “We fight for self-determination, and true sovereignty of our lands. We advocate for the traditional elders in Mexico and the United States. We provide an autonomous space for O’odham to educate themselves on the issues that affect our land and people (our future). We encourage and support all O’odham, especially the youth, in carrying on our traditional practices, just as our ancestors did before us. Our projects of solidarity are our politics.”
The Trump administration, upon entering office in January 2017, enforced more than four hundred executive actions on immigration from interior enforcement to migration controls at the border (Pierce and Bolter 2020).
My usage of the various labels: Latin@/x and Chican@/x is to signify how critical Latinx Indigeneities is far reaching in its scope, in that, while critical Latinx Indigeneities makes interventions into critical race and class analysis by spotlighting Indigeneity, it also is important to consider its intricateness in analyses of gender and sexuality.
Tohono O’odham peoples have always resisted settler domination and will continue to defend their traditional life ways, kinship systems, land, and relationship with the earth, plant, and animal life against United States and Mexican colonialism and imperialism, in particular US settler border militarization and criminalization of Indigenous migrants (OSABC 2011).
The Tohono O’odham are itinerant peoples living in kinship systems, migrating throughout their land according to the seasons and shifts in growth of vegetation (Erickson 1994). This kind of Indigenous migration is illegible in Western discourses about im/migration and borders.
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Madrigal, R.A.G. Critical relationalities: Centering Indigenous land, presence, and sovereignty in immigrant/migrant rights discourses. Lat Stud 21, 305–322 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-023-00434-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-023-00434-2