We are Aztlán! Chicanx Histories in the Northern Borderlands offer nine chapters from and about Chicanx in areas beyond the well-studied Southwest—including the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, and Great Lakes regions. The book weaves regional histories of El Movimiento into a national Chicanx experience, illustrating what southwest borderland history often ignores. Contributors to this multidisciplinary anthology employ diverse qualitative methodologies: oral histories, testimonios, autobiographies, personal lived experiences, participant observations, interviews, and archival research. In capturing various forms of resistance and community mobilization, the authors demonstrate how small numbers of Chicanx people have been able to move huge political agendas. Academic and non-academic voices in the book describe from Chicanx perspectives, colonialism, history, immigration, labor, literature, sociology, education, economic development, and education in the “Northern Borderlands.”

Part I, “Empires and Borders,” presents a historiography of internal colonialism by examining the unequal relationship between Mexico and the United States and its impact on Mexican workers in both countries. Valdes notes how U.S. companies moved their production to Mexico and other third world countries to take advantage of cheap labor, thereby, exploiting workers, internationally, and devastating U.S. workers who no longer make things, but only serve others directly, mostly through health care and service industries. From an Indigenous Canadian perspective, Miner sheds light on how colonialism and capitalism impede interactions among Latinxs and Indigenous peoples and how policies in Canada, Mexico, and the United States include a systematic appropriation of indigenous lands, seizure of resources, and denial of sovereignty (63.) The creation of a binational art project by Indigenous and Latinx youth on the Northern Border, undermines the power of the border, allowing the reader to imagine a world without borders.

The second part of the book includes case studies focusing on political activism demonstrating the significance of the ongoing struggle for political incorporation of Latino/as. In Chapter 3, Estrada notes that the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), suspended literacy tests in the South, but not in Washington State. In 1967, Mexican Americans called for VRA enforcement to end literacy tests precluding them from registering to vote. In 2012, Mexican Americans again resorted to the VRA to contest at-large election systems. Montes v. City of Yakima led to the creation of seven single-member voting districts that ultimately led to the election of three Latinas to the city council in 2015.

In Chapter 4, Mireles depicts the struggle starting in the 1960s for the creation of Mexican American Studies at Michigan State University. “Don't get caught,” an instruction manual produced by La Onda Latina Michigan State University Women's Council provided practical information for organizing protests, forming affinity groups, and interacting with the police (p. 107). Mireles incorporates activists’ personal histories leading to the creation of the Julian Samora Research Institute in 1989, an undergraduate specialization in Chicanx/Latinx studies in 1999, and a Ph.D. program in Chicano/Latino studies in 2007. In Chapter 5, Rosales Castañeda traces social and cultural Mexican American groups’ evolution into political organizations and community development agencies such as the Center for Autonomous Social Action-Hermandad General de Trabajadores (CASA-HGT) and the establishment of Radio KDNA in 1979, dedicated to the Spanish-speaking community-- la voz del campesino. Cardenas, offers the last case study, focusing on feminist, Chicana activist Maria Alanis Ruiz, and how she crossed many borders from Mexico to the United States, Texas to Oregon, farmworker to a college student, and activist to co-founder of Chicano/Latino Studies at Portland State University. Poignant details of Maria challenging the machismo of the Chicano Movement remind readers of the sexism endured. Maria's resistance against discrimination, coupled with spiritual lessons of survival and determination, inspired her to strive for social justice across boundaries.

Saldivar Maldonado and Maldonado, offer an ethnographic, community study analyzing the Mexicanization of Woodburn, Oregon through examination of the demographics, business development, church and school settings over time. Traditional downtown businesses could not compete with the influx of national chain stores and closed. Mexican businesses filled the void with restaurants and bakeries. In 2005, the downtown city park was rebuilt as a Mexican plaza to bring more people into the area and promote economic development. The authors interviewed non-Mexicana/o community members regarding the Mexicanization of Woodburn that sheds light on racist elements in the community while positing positive experiences other community members have had in their interactions with Mexicans. In Chapter 8, titled Norteada/Northed: My Tears Created the Great Lakes, Melendez notes that not all Mexicans are immigrants and the majority of Latinos in Michigan are native born. The chapter draws on Testimonios of a married couple, Luciano and Rafaela Garcia; while he arrived by Pullman train, her family arrived after an arduous journey of great sacrifice and much hope, walking along the rail-road tracks from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua to Rockford, Illinois in 1947. The Garcias, who worked in the automotive industry, joined ten other Mexican couples, in creating El Comité Patriótico to celebrate Mexican holidays, traditions and customs. Mexicans in Michigan connect with their heritage, distinctively—it's Brown Berets chapter renamed the state capital Lansing to Aztlansing, and Mexican students referred to themselves as Michicanos (MiXicanos). The final chapter by Garcia offers an auto-ethnographic examination of a Chicano's Pacific Northwest borderland experience, different from that of Mexicans in the Southwest. Inspired to become an educator after taking Chicano Studies 101, the author states: “My family's ability to hold on to its culture and my exposure to greater Aztlán revealed the beauty of the Chicanx experience” (258).

This book is an important contribution to ethnic studies, bringing to life Chicanx experience in the Northern Borderlands through accessible, engaging writing styles that students enjoy. In addition, We Are Atzlán! can serve as a research guide, as qualitative methodologies in the book can be replicated by researchers and students in their own work. In this way, one of the book's most important contributions may be helping students engage in “praxis that applies both theory and method in service of social change, (to) sow the seeds of self-empowerment, to reclaim their history and become activists in their own right” (190).