Blumenthal, Harry, photographer. [Tarahumara Indians of Villas command]. , ca. 1911. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

​Research:

My research focuses on the environmental ethnohistory of native groups in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands.  In particular, my dissertation looks at the Rarámuri (also known as the Tarahumara) of Northern Mexico and their relationship with the Chihuahuan Desert and Sierra Madre environments they inhabit.

This research ranges from the pre-Columbian era, through the Spanish Colonial Period, and into the modern era, investigating changes in landscape, lifeways, and foodways that have marked each of these periods.  The primary focus is on the resilience of Rarámuri culture, and the ability of native groups to adapt under both natural and foreign pressures while still maintaining their indigenous identities.  This research is informed by archaeological records, Spanish colonial documents, and oral histories with living members of these populations.

​My prior research includes investigation into the effects of the Gadsden Purchase on the Tohono O'odham (also known as the Papago) of Sonora and Arizona.  This research highlighted the way that the U.S. extended power throughout the southwest region following the war with Mexico, and how this power was used to remove autonomy from the O'odham.

Moreover, this work highlights the way that the O'odham fought to keep their identity and culture intact, and the way that the landscape and environment aided in this effort.  The desert environment kept larger settlements from spreading beyond mining towns and established missions, as well as from creating a solid boundary along the new border.

This last fact was important in allowing Tohono O'odham families to retain communication and contact with one another up until the 1980s, when the War on Drugs tightened border security and finally fully severed the Tohono O'odham nation in half.

Image from William Emory's report on the U.S.-Mexican Boundary Survey, circa 1857.

I have also looked extensively at the U.S.-Mexico guest worker agreement known as the Bracero Program that ran from the early 1940s to the mid-1960s.  This formed the bulk of my Master's research, alongside an investigation into the effects of the Green Revolution programs that sought to "modernize" Mexican agriculture.

My MA paper explored how these two efforts combined to disrupt the lives of the peasant farmers (campesinos) and their families.  By taking away laborers, the Bracero program placed undue burden upon their wives and daughters who were left to pick up the slack. Meanwhile, the Green Revolution programs forced these same families to spend what little money they had on new fertilizers in order to compete with and grow new varieties of corn and wheat.