My Name in Brown

Manuscript Synopsis

As a ninth-generation Bordercana, Toni and her family are a mestizo-mix of Indigenous and Mexican American heritage. They never left the Border. Growing up, she was never made to think of the Border—this in-between space—as two different spaces. In this multigenerational nonfiction story, Toni retells her abuela’s story of their indigenous past while sharing the history of the area and its people. In La Union, the town where her family lives and where their family has always lived, the adobe dwellings are made from la tierra. The same earth is a womb for fallen ancestors—the Chihene Nde Apaches who once roamed the area, the Spaniards who came before 1821, the Mexicans who came after, and the Mexican Americans who still inhabit the area today. From start to finish, this story is the embodiment of determined population of indigenous peoples in their efforts to reunite their brothers and sisters as they reclaim their indigenous roots. It is among the many stories of people still thriving and not forgotten along the US-Mexico. Border.