“Gathering Together We Decide” Celebration at University of Texas at El Paso

Date: Thursday, April 16, 2026

Time: 4-6 p.m., CDT

Place: Centennial Museum, 610 W. University Ave., University of Texas, El Paso, TX

Celebrate the publication of Gathering Together, We Decide: Archives of Dispossession, Resistance, and Memory in Ndé Homelands with editors Margo Tamez, Cynthia Bejarano, and Jeffrey P. Shepherd. The event is sponsored by the University of Texas at El Paso Institute of Oral History, Department of History, and Native American and Indigenous Studies Minor. The celebration is free and open to the public, refreshments will be served, and books will be available for signing and purchase.

Margo Tamez (Ndé) is an associate professor of Indigenous studies in the Community, Culture, and Global Studies Department, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and affiliated in the MFA Creative Writing (Poetry) Program, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, at the University of British Columbia in the unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan People. Cynthia Bejarano is a regents professor and College of Arts and Sciences Stan Fulton Endowed Chair at New Mexico State University. Jeffrey P. Shepherd is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at El Paso.

About the book:

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security began condemnation proceedings on the property of Dr. Eloisa Tamez, a Lipan Apache (Ndé) professor, veteran, and title holder to land in South Texas deeded to her ancestors under the colonial occupation and rule of King Charles III of Spain in 1761, during a time when Indigenous lands were largely taken and exploited by Spanish colonizers. Crown grants of lands to Indigenous peoples afforded them the opportunity to reclaim Indigenous title and control. The federal government wanted Tamez’s land to build a portion of the “border wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border. She refused. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security sued her, but she countersued based on Aboriginal land rights, Indigenous inherent rights, the land grant from Spain, and human rights. This standoff continued for years, until the U.S. government forced Tamez to forfeit land for the wall.

In response, Dr. Eloisa Tamez and her daughter, Dr. Margo Tamez, organized a gathering of Lipan tribal members, activists, lawyers, and allies to meet in El Calaboz, South Texas. This gathering was a response to the appropriation of the Tamez family land, but it also provided an international platform to dispute the militarization of Indigenous territory throughout the U.S.-Mexico bordered lands. The gathering and years of ensuing resistance and activism produced an archive of scholarly analyses, testimonios, artwork, legal briefs, poetry, and other cultural productions.