Talk: Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling

Jason De León
Mellon Lecture
Co-Presented by SITE SANTA FE and the School for Advanced Research

In this talk, De León presents stories from his recent book—2024 National Book Award-winning Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling—and examines the complicated relationship among transnational gangs, the human smuggling industry, and desires for safety and well-being on the Central American migrant trail.

2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and former SAR Weatherhead Fellow, Jason De León combines archaeology, ethnography, visual anthropology, and forensic science to examine migration, violence, and material culture, and human stories to illuminate global issues. De León is the director of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and the Lloyd E. Cotsen Endowed Chair of Archaeology at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he is also a professor of anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American studies.

Support for SAR’s annual Mellon Lecture provided by the Mellon Foundation.