Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon by Lynn Stephen

Abstract

lateryears of the nineteenth and early twen tieth centuries. The last volumes published were those for Wisconsin Territory, which was admitted to statehood in 1848. This left the papers of thegreatmajority of territories west of the Mississippi unedited and unpublished. Scholars wishing to examine thepapers of, for example, Oregon Territory, stillneed to go to theNational Archives or order copies from the Archives.Microfilm versions of the territorial papers are also available. In 1989, NARA launched the seriesofwhich thisvolume isa part, intending ittobe a "con tinuation" of theTerritorialPapers project (p. xv). Italso builds on previous guides, lists,and preliminary inventories. This series consists of guides to records of federal agencies rather than edited versions of the records themselves. Volumes that have appeared thus far cover records of theDepartments of State, Justice, Agriculture, and Interior. The publication reviewedhere isone of three"sections"pertain ing to Interior records. The two volumes are devoted toRecord Group 49, the recordsof the General Land Office, theprincipal predecessor of theBureau ofLandManagement. The other two sections deal with thefilesof theOffice of theSecretaryof the Interiorand theCommis sioner of Railroads and "Select Agencies" of thedepartment. The "Territorial Period" as defined here spans the years from the Louisiana Purchase to the admission ofArizona and New Mexico to statehood. The records of a particular ter ritorydescribed extend to 1912and, inmany cases, beyond ? even though most of the territorieshad achieved statehood by the end of thenineteenth century.This guide includes therecordsofAlaska Territorybut not thoseof the territoriesofHawaii and Puerto Rico and other overseas possessions. The firstvolume describes the records by activity rather than by territoryand state. We find, for example, descriptions of "Records Concerning Boundary Surveys," "Records Relating toMilitary Bounty Land Warrants," and "General Records Relating toPrivate Land Claims." Figures are given showing thephysical extentof thevarious series,such as thenumber of linearfeet. The first volume concludes with a useful "Glossary of Public Land Terms." The second volume contains lists"intended to acquaint theusers of thisguidewith a quick introduction to thekinds of records available to researchers interested in the activities of theGeneral Land Office in a particular State or Territory" (p. 1).The volume consists of six appendixes, the first two being "File Lists, by State, of Selected Series ofRecords," and "Sur veyorsGeneral of Public Lands States West of the Mississippi River." Both volumes, for themost part, treat records found atNational Archives facilities in the Washington, D.C., area. The justifica tion given fornot including those atNAR?s regional branches is that records there are mostly duplicates of, or similar to, those in the Washington area. Nevertheless, research ers should check tomake certain theyare not overlooking something.The regional branches hold a good many unique treasures. This guide offers users of the archives a great, painstakingly compiled research tool. The editor and his staff deserve the thanks of all scholars using theNARA system. Michael J.Brodhead U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers,Virginia TRANSBORDER UVES: INDIGENOUS OAXACANS IN MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, ANDOREGON byLynnStephen Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina, 2007. Illustrations, photographs, maps, tables, notes, bibliography, index. 397 pages. $23.95 paper. The increased scholarly attention to diaspora, circularmigration, and transnationalism has illuminated excitingways to consider social Reviews 495 change. Ithas also underscored the importance of examining the mechanics of domination in discursive practices,modes ofmarket integra tion,and the mutations of statepower atdiffer ent spatial and temporal scales. Lynn Stephen's Transborder Lives productively engages these terms through "collaborative activist ethno graphic research" to investigate the displace ment, dispersal, and circulation of Zapotee and Mixtee Indigenous communities of the Mexican state of Oaxaca to rural and urban sites inCalifornia and Oregon (p. 321). This work ispropelled by its simultaneity and geographic scope, which can be seen in statements such as: "In order tohavemultisited communities, we must have multisited histo ries" (p. 66). Through the ethnographic infor mation sheprovides about Zapotee andMixtee communities, Stephen argues that transnation alism appears tobe a subset ofwhat she refers to as a more complex transborder experience. She argues that international migration, through the lens of transnationalism, misses different types of crossings that indigenous migrants encounter. For her, the experiences ofZapotee andMixtee migrations suggest"the borders they cross are ethnic, class, cultural, colonial, and state borders within Mexico as well as at...