Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands

(Harvard University Press) Benton-Cohen probes the history of Cochise County, Ariz., in the 19th and 20th centuries, providing a look at the creation of racial boundaries and national identity and their application in present-day immigration reform debates. Her book explores the daily lives and shifting racial boundaries between groups as disparate as Apache resistance fighters, Chinese merchants, Mexican American homesteaders, Midwestern dry farmers, Mormon polygamists, Serbian miners, New York mine managers, and Anglo women reformers. Benton-Cohen is an assistant professor of history at Georgetown University.