What Side Are You On?

June 24, 2024
Debut author Wilson, a human rights activist and member of the Tohono O’Odham Nation, teams up with Lucero, a professor of the comparative history of ideas at the University of Washington, to offer a captivating memoir of resistance. Born on the Tohono O’Odham reservation in 1949 and raised in Tucson and the segregated mining town of Ajo, Ariz., the author recounts a hardscrabble childhood and how his growing awareness of law enforcement’s violence against Native men inspired him to become an activist. After stints in the military and at seminary, Wilson moved back to Arizona and became a Presbyterian lay pastor during a worsening migrant crisis aggravated by U.S. border patrol policies that forced migrants onto routes through O’odham lands, where they often perished in 110-plus–degree heat. Determined to make a difference, Wilson became involved with Humane Borders in Tucson and in 2002 began setting up water stations in migrant corridors despite opposition from his tribal and church communities. Wilson’s commitment inspires, and the account is enriched by Lucero’s meditations on history and sovereignty, including passages exploring how the U.S. draws and enforces physical and metaphorical boundaries between its “ ‘civilization’ and ‘merciless savagery’” of both Mexico and Native lands. It’s a rewarding chronicle of a remarkable life.