All posts by maiersj

Once More Unto the Breach

Community, Reflections

I have been given the extraordinary privilege of travelling back to Texas with the University of Indianapolis team.  Once again, I must prepare myself for the trip.  Some of the preparations are simple.  Packing is easy.  I do it the day we leave, so I usually only forget a couple of items.  Coordinating travel and hotels is effortless, mostly because Dr. Latham does all of that work (so I literally put in no effort, Thanks Krista!).  For me, the difficult part is preparing my mind for the journey.  It is a strange mix of emotionally taxing and immensely gratifying.   In order to plan, first I need to know what we’re up against.

Even with Dr. Latham’s meticulous planning, much of our agenda in Texas is up in the air.  This is an intentional decision that allows our schedule to be fluid and adapt to whatever circumstances arise.  The first leg of our journey this year will take us to Texas State to assist with the cleaning and analysis of the remains that we helped excavate over the previous years.  I really look forward this part.  Over the last couple of years, I had the pleasure of getting to know some of the amazing students and professors from Texas State, and I am honored to have the opportunity to work with them again.

Missing In Harris County Day flyer with dates
Join us May 14

From there, we will be travelling to Houston to participate in the second annual “Missing in Harris County Day”.  We will be helping to collect family DNA reference samples and taking missing persons information.  Until now, our field work in Texas has revolved around unidentified border crossers.
What is amazing about this opportunity is that it is open to anyone in Harris County that is missing a loved one.  Hopefully our efforts in Houston will help provide answers to families and loved ones.

For more information on Missing in Harris County Day, please click here.

Falfurrias sign with pink flowers and "Land of Heart's Delight" written beneath it
The Land of Heart’s Delight

The last leg of our journey will take us back to Falfurrias to volunteer at the South Texas Human Rights Center.  Over the last few years, we have cultivated an incredible relationship with the wonderful people of Brooks County and I look forward to seeing everyone again.  We’re not exactly sure what we will be doing, but I know the STRC will put us to work.  I guarantee it will be both physically and mentally exhausting.  I have grown to consider myself a small part of the community, so I expect this segment of our trip to be the most challenging and also the most rewarding.

Since I ended my last post with a quote from William Shakespeare, it seemed only fitting to begin this journey with another.

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:

Follow your spirit…”

Henry V – William Shakespere

~Justin

End of the Road

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

Our time in Texas has come to an end.  Two weeks came and went as if I blinked.  These trips to Texas always feel surreal – like a fleeting dream.  It is impossible for me to explain even a fraction of what the experience was like.  Every moment of the day is filled from morning to night with such things that leave you physically and mentally exhausted.  It also forces you to wrestle with every human emotion, such as joy, fear, guilt, loss, and helplessness.  As hard as it was to face, I know we all  gained great strength from the difficulty of our task.

I am not an eloquent man.  Try as I might, I cannot muster up the words to express how much this project means to me.  To remedy this, I will shamelessly use the words of William Shakespeare from the Tempest.

Prospero:

Our Actors
Our Actors

 “Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and  Are melted into air, into thin air:

Landscape image of Texas with a small body of water and trees
The cloud-capped State of Texas

 And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,

Image of the Alamo
The solemn temples, the great globe itself

 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”

Image of a grave marker of unidentified remains
What I see when asked, “Why do you do this work?”

As I said last year, it isn’t over.  It can’t be – there is still so much work that needs to be done.  There are still people dying without a name.  There are still families without a place to grieve.  Everyday the hard working people of Texas are faced with this humanitarian crisis.  So many of them work tirelessly to ameliorate the problem in any way that they can.  I feel greatly honored just to have done my small part, and privileged to have done it by their side.

Justin

Radio Silence

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Snapshots

This week in Texas is a little different from the usual field work we do with the migrant identifications.  Normally we would be waist high in dirt and saturated in sweat.  Instead, we have been busy creating biological profiles for the individuals that were excavated by Baylor and UIndy in the two previous field seasons.  While it is not physically backbreaking work, creating biological profiles can be just as exhausting.  It’s hard to stay mentally focused for hours on end.  It is also possibly the most important part of our work because it is essential to the identification process.  We need to pay close attention to everything we do to make sure that these individuals are properly identified in order to be returned to their families.

Team member Justin filling out a dental analysis form The only problem in terms of blogging about this type of lab work is that it isn’t glamorous.    First, much of our lab work contains sensitive information.  It is graphic and contains personal information, so not only is it inappropriate to post online but may be illegal to share (at least in Indiana, state laws vary).  Secondly, as I said earlier it isn’t glamorous.  It is hard to photograph notebooks, calipers, and pencils, then tell people how cool it is to do math and science (for the record, IT IS COOL).

Dr. Krista Latham writing notes on a red clipboardSince I can’t really show you what we’ve been doing the past few days, I thought it might be helpful to explain a little about the process.  The biological profile (or bio profile as we say in the biz) contains a list of descriptions that we create from an individual’s skeleton.  That list includes their age at death, whether they were male or female, their ancestry, and how tall they were.  Imagine this part of the process like a big game of “Guess Who”.  From the onset, there are many possibilities of who this person is.  Little by little, we narrow down that list of people by answering the questions like:  Are they male?  Are they European?  Are they young?  Are they tall?  Eventually we are left with a much shorter list of individuals, but we have not yet been able to identify a particular individual.  Allow me to give you an example.  If I gave you these categories for Ryan’s bio profile, I would say- This is a white male, probably in his 20s and is about 6 feet tall.  While it is helpful in narrowing our search, there are still plenty of people on this planet who fit this description.  We need to be much more specific in order to identify anyone.

Team member Ryan analyzing an element with gloves onThe next step is to look for anything unique that might help us to identify the person.  One method is to create charts and take photographs of teeth and dental work.  Everybody’s teeth are unique, especially if they have had teeth pulled, cavities filled, or personalized dentures made.  Another method we use is to look for broken bones or skeletal diseases that have healed.  Broken bones aren’t necessarily individualizing by themselves, but they help tell the story.  If I use Ryan as my example again (sorry, buddy), I could be much more confident in positively identifying him if I know that he had broken his forearm as a kid, and I could match the information ascertained from the skeleton with his medical records.  Finally, one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal is the use of DNA analysis.  If we can match an individual to a family reference sample, then we can be incredibly confident in our identification.

Team member Ryan performing measurements of skeletal elements on an osteometric boardIn the end, our hope is that all of these individuals are identified and returned to their families.  The creation of a biological profile is an essential part of the identification process.  I applaud the hard-working students and professors at Texas State and the University of Indianapolis for their tireless efforts this week.  It is because of their labors that any identifications will be possible.

Team member Justin standing behind a clear dry-erase board with a mustache and monocle drawn on it
Lab work is serious.

Justin