Land Uprising explores Indigenous land reclamation to rethink connections between Native storytelling practices and Latinx racialization across overlapping colonial and nation-state forms.
Land Uprising
Narratives of Indigenous land reclamation
Simón Ventura Trujillo is an Assistant Professor of Latinx Studies in the English Department at New York University. His book, Land Uprising: Native Story Power and the Insurgent Horizons of Latinx Indigeneity (University of Arizona Press, 2020) explores Indigenous land reclamation in the areas around current day New Mexico to rethink connections between Native storytelling practices and Latinx racialization across overlapping colonial and nation-state territories. Land Uprising interweaves exploration of the cultural production of La Alianza Federal de Mercedes (a formative organization of the Chicanx movement of the 1960s and 1970s), personal history (Trujillo’s own grandfather was active in La Alianza), and contemporary scholarship of Chicanx, Latinx, Latin American, and Native American and Indigenous studies. Working closely with the author, we devised an illustrated map to situate the stories, struggles, and connections central to the book. Drawing inspiration from La Alianza’s communications, we created a layered visual language of land grants, historic events, land formations and places (real and imagined).