Raquel Torua Padilla

This project examines how the militarization of the Yaqui people of northwestern Mexico reshaped their lifeways, citizenship, and diaspora in the early twentieth century. Combining community-engaged and archival research with oral histories and digital mapping, it traces the experiences of Yaqui men and families conscripted or impressed into the Mexican army. Following Yaqui soldiers across Mexico, the US, and North Africa, “Yaqui Soldiers” situates Indigenous conscription within broader transnational histories of militarization. This project also examines how memories of conscription endure as forms of collective memory and political resistance, connecting past experiences of displacement and survival to ongoing struggles for autonomy and recognition.