After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel
writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home—only
to discover that her native South Texas had been radically
transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an
eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation’s
foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom
perished along the way. The frequency of these tragedies seemed like
a terrible coincidence until Elizondo Griest moved to the New
York–Canada borderlands. Once she began to meet Mohawks from the
Akwesasne Nation, she recognized striking parallels to life on the
southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties,
their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional
occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike
struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround
their neighborhoods, while the U.S. Border Patrol militarizes them.
Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted
to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems,
meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints,
Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on
the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating
the spaces in between and the people who live there. This edition
features a new preface by the author.