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by Abigail Carl-Klassen (Author), Raúl Kigra (Photographer), Veronica Enns (Photographer)
In Chihuahua, Mexico, the Tres Culturas region is a place where Mennonite, Mestizo, and Indigenous Rarámuri people live, forming a crossroad of traditions, languages, and ways of living. A landscape of convergence and divergence, breaking and reforming, where you might be labeled a rebel-or even excommunicated-for following your dreams.
Through poetic vignettes and photography, Rebels, Exiles, and Bridge Builders: A Century of Stories from Mexico's Mennonite Villages portrays one hundred years of cross-cultural encounters in the Tres Culturas region. A century that saw significant changes with intermarriage, sociopolitical pressures, and technological advances on the rise, with people pursuing higher education, economic opportunities, and different religious experiences. Race and ethnicity, gender and labor, migration and excommunication are at the heart of these stories. Some show what it's like to leave the only community they've known-choosing love and education over family and tradition. While others examine what it means to push the boundaries and still decide to stay.
A companion to the oral history project of the same name, Rebels, Exiles, and Bridge Builders blends narrative nonfiction and poetry, forming prose poems from transcript excerpts that honor the original speakers, their individual experiences and voices. Intimate and deeply relevant, this is a testament to the universality of connection, belonging, and home.
