I’m honored to have experienced and witnessed all that I did during our last trip to Texas. It was wonderful to see both the familiar and new faces of those who live and breathe the work of migrant rights and migrant identification on a daily basis. Eddie Canales, Sister Pam, Kate Spradley, and Tim Gocha each, in their own way, do the work of sustaining focus and demanding attention to lives too often dismissed as expendable, unimportant, or beyond help. I am grateful for the access they’ve given me and my students to the workings of this initiative. In one week, we were given the chance to experience a “crash course” in exhumation processes, media representation, migrant rights, and respite care and support. These folks represent silken threads of a much larger web of people who care and believe in our obligation and capacity to work towards a more just society. We have much to learn from them individually and collectively.
I’m thankful, again, to the UIndy forensic science team for continuing to allow, not just one, but three cultural anthropologists in their midst. As a scholar of US culture and society, I often describe my work as a form of analysis that makes the familiar seem strange. My aim, in part, is to explicate taken-for-granted forms of knowledge, practices, and values underlying dynamics and realities of life and the institutions mediating our lived experiences. This is, of course, not possible without the generosity, candor, and patience of research participants. I am grateful to have been immersed such thoughtful and gracious hosts. I am certain that my presence and questions must’ve made their familiar world seem strange in ways not always intended!
Finally, I am honored to have had the opportunity to mentor two bright and articulate students in data collection techniques of participant observation and unstructured ‘interviewing.’ I could not have anticipated how thoroughly proud I am of what they accomplished in such a short amount of time. Their insightful comments and questions, meticulous fieldnotes, and willingness to do the sometimes uncomfortably social (and physical!) work of cultural anthropology is great testament to their character and potential as future leaders in our communities and future scholars in their own rights. I am unbelievably proud and perhaps even more excited to work with them on analysis and presentation.
There are so many more people I encountered, spoke with, and learned from. From local law enforcement and local community members to respite center volunteers, this season’s ‘crash course’ was enriched by each of you and your willingness to engage those of us visiting for this short, but intensive burst of work. I am thankful for the work you do, each and every day, on behalf of migrant rights, migrant families, and compassion and justice for all.
Category Archives: Reflections
The Denouement
This field season in Texas will be my last adventure as a UINDY graduate student. I have had the honor of working on this project since the beginning, but I will be graduating in May and (hopefully) moving onto a PhD program. It is impossible to explain how much this project has meant to me, and I am not eloquent, but I can try to distill some of the feelings into a handful of words.
Gratitude – I feel privileged to have been selected for this project. Each field season only allows a few of us Greyhounds the chance to travel to Texas, so I feel honored to have played my part for so long. I believe that I have represented our University in our motto of “Education for Service”. I am grateful for all the amazing people I’ve met, the knowledge I’ve gained, and the person I’ve become because of this work.
Pride – I am incredibly proud of the work that has been done by EVERYONE involved in this project. What we have collectively done so far is amazing. The primary purpose of this work is the identification and repatriation of unidentified border crossers. Collectively, we have identified ~20 individuals, and we are still in the processes of identifying well over 100 more. I look forward to every future identification that our efforts will bring.
Community – This has been one of the most unexpected outcomes of this project. I never imagined that our field work would make us honorary members of the Falfurrias community. This work has given us a chance to work throughout Brooks county. Besides excavations, we have dined with ranchers and constables, given lectures at border patrol, and built and filled water stations. Nearly every day we worked this season, people stopped by the cemetery to thank us for our efforts. It is powerful knowing that the community advocates our work. Fal has become a sort-of second home, and I cannot think of another community of which I’d rather be a part.
Closure – This work never ends. As long as there are deaths along the border there is still more work to do. We have nearly completed all excavations at Sacred Heart Burial Park, but that is only one cemetery in one county. Texas is massive. There are many more counties holding many more cemeteries. Without the proper attention, the unidentified people buried in these areas hold no hope of being returned to their families. This work must continue…
And yet, the end of this season brings me a sense of closure. I am incredibly proud of the caliber of work that we have done in Falfurrias. All the people who have worked on this project have started something amazing, and the efforts will continue even after I leave UINDY, and I know that this endeavor is in capable hands. I leave happy knowing that I have worked to the best of my abilities. My efforts have helped people be identified and families be reunited. I will always continue to advocate for human rights in every venue, but I am sated knowing that I have done my part.
Hasta que nos encontremos de nuevo, te dejo mi corazón. Gracias por todo.
Not goodbye, but see you later
This post has been really hard for me to write. Not because I have a lack of things to say, but because it is hard to put my experience into words.
I learned so incredibly much while down in Texas. Not only did I gain more experience with forensic archeological techniques, more importantly, I experienced the humanitarian side of this crisis at a deeply personal level. As I have written in a previous post, growing up in Michigan and now attending school in Indiana, I have been very removed from what’s occurring at the border. Going to Texas was my first experience with this humanitarian crisis, and it hit me really, really hard. Meeting individuals and families who survived the journey where so many perish was an extremely powerful and emotional experience for me. While we always show respect for bones, talking with the individuals who survived the same conditions experienced by those being exhumed in the burial park added a new and unique dimension to understanding the crisis at the border and its relationship to humanitarianism. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to volunteer at the Respite Center because experiencing this side of the crisis ignited inside of me a passion for humanitarian work.
Although we accomplished a lot while down in Texas, there is still so much to be done and because of that, it doesn’t feel right to back in Indy. I wish we could have stayed longer and helped more, but it’s reassuring to know that the efforts down there don’t stop when we leave. Everyone involved in Sacred Heart Humanitarian Respite Center, South Texas Human Rights Center, Operation Identification, as well as the various other organizations committed to identification and bringing awareness to the crisis at the border remain hard at work. I am grateful to have been able to meet some of the individuals involved in these organizations, the work they do is truly amazing.
With the start of a new semester, assignments, projects, papers, and deadlines will begin to consume my time once again. No matter how busy I get, I will never forget the experiences I had in Texas. These experiences have changed me in many ways; they have allowed me to grow as a scientist, as an anthropologist, as an individual, and as an advocate. I only hope that I am able to return to South Texas once again to volunteer my time to aid in this crisis. So, Texas, it’s not goodbye, but see you later.
Leann