Category Archives: Human Rights, Migrant Death

Talking about the project itself

Day 1: Deep in the heart of Texas

January 4, 2018Environment, Human Rights, Migrant Deathrizorl

I was very excited to get started on our first day of excavation. We had a decent breakfast at our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express, before hitting the road this morning. It took approximately 30 minutes to arrive at the site by car, so Jessica played some music to pump us up (wake us up and get us motivated) for a successful day of digging (e.g. “Eye of the Tiger”, “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”, and “Don’t Stop Believin’”). The site was located on a gorgeous, private cemetery at a family owned ranch, where numerous relatives of the property owners had been buried throughout the years. Unidentified migrants were also buried here — some in areas that were marked by posts, and others without a definite location. When we arrived at the cemetery, it was only about 30 degrees with 20mph winds, making for a cold start to the day! Graduate students at Texas State University had devised a plan for dividing the site into four, 20×20 meter quadrants, which could then be further divided to maintain a uniform scale across all of the independently-working excavation teams. Texas State determined it would be best to record GPS points at every four-meter interval throughout the site to create subquadrants. We followed their pattern, and ended up with 25, 4×4 meter subquadrants within our Northeast quadrant of the cemetery. This turned out to be more work than Leann and I were expecting, but will be an important leaning experience.

Driving down country highway with blue skies. — Beautiful drive to the cemetery

Leann was an incredible mentor today. After Jordan, Jessica, Leann, Dr. Latham, and I finished setting up our grid , Leann and I began creating the surface map. We spent almost half of the day mapping because there were nearly two dozen headstones indicating family graves within our quadrant, two upright trees, and one fallen tree covered in shrubbery. After working together using the tape measures and a compass to document numerous measurements into a graph, we finally had all of the data needed to work on our completed maps back at the hotel.

Two team members mapping in headstones. — Leann and Sammi taking measurements to create a map

Overall, I believe that day 1 went very well. I am extremely grateful to have such an experienced, well-trained team by my side to help teach me to properly excavate a site of this magnitude. Everyone was so patient with me on my first day, and I felt we were able to accomplish a lot in a relatively short amount of time.

–Sammi

While Sammi and I were taking points for our surface map, Jess, Jordan, and Dr. Latham were probing the other subquadrants to feel for anomalies. They found several areas of interest and began digging test pits to investigate further. After digging a few test pits, they decided that it would be more efficient and systematic to dig test trenches throughout the subquadrants as opposed to continuing to dig test pits whenever an anomaly was felt. There are numerous known burials in our quadrant that are aligned into rows, and those rows were used as guidelines for digging our trenches to locate any unidentified individuals. With about 45 minutes left before sundown, Sammi and I finished taking measurements and joined the rest of the team digging trenches.

Jordan and Jessica digging a trench. — Jordan and Jessica digging a trench

At the end of the day, we created two small trenches about 50 cm deep and 5 meters long. Tomorrow, we plan on extending these trenches to cover all of the open areas in our quadrant that felt anomalous when we probed, as well as deepening the trenches we dug today by about 10-15 more cm. With this trench depth, we will be able to further probe down reaching a total depth of about six feet. We plan to construct the trenches like we did in Falfurrias, systematically spaced so no potential areas of burial will go unchecked. I look forward to what tomorrow will bring and how much we will be able to accomplish! I also look forward to some warmer weather….

–Leann

Sunset over fields. — Sunset marking the end of day 1

A new year and a new field season

December 30, 2017Community, Environment, Human Rights, Migrant Death, ReflectionsJessica

In less than a week (as I’m writing this), our group leaves for another trip down to South Texas to assist in the humanitarian effort of identifying the remains of migrants who perished along the US-Mexico border. The first step in this process is the field season (exhuming the remains) and is sometimes the hardest step. This will be my third trip to Texas and even though I’ve been before, I cannot help but to feel a little anxious. My first trip to Texas, our group was at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Falfurrias, Texas which is place where several field seasons had occurred prior to my visit. In our group, we had members that had been to Falfurrias before which made it less apprehensive because I at least knew what to expect in terms of soil consistency and weather. Although, my very first trip to Texas in January 2017 saw record low temperatures in the 30s which none of us were prepared for. It all plays to our motto of ‘expect the unexpected’ and there was no way to know we would be bringing the cold, Indiana weather with us to Texas.

Team members mapping in a trench. — Jan 2017 – Record low temperatures

My second trip to Texas brought our group to a whole new city and cemetery. Although our group spent weeks carefully packing and deciding what tools to bring, nothing prepared us for the soil consistency that we found in Rio Grande City Cemetery. The soil consistency was more similar to cement; hard, compact, rocky soil that could only be penetrated by heavy machinery or a mattic. One of the many differences between Falfurrias and Rio Grande City was that in Rio Grande City, the graves were marked and the cemetery employee who actually made the graves years’ prior, was on scene to help us. The cemetery employee, Sylvestre, was a huge help in locating and systematically excavating the dirt until we were close enough to the actual burial that we could proceed with using our hand tools. As it turned out, the burials were closer to 5-6ft deep in Rio Grande City Cemetery versus only being 3-4ft deep in sandy soil like the graves in Falfurrias.

Back hoe digging a trench. — May 2017 – Sylvestre

For my third trip to Texas, I am not sure what to expect because I feel that the Sacred Heart Cemetery in Falfurrias and the Rio Grande City Cemetery were at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of soil consistency and knowing the exact places were migrants were buried. What I do know, is that our team has a knack for adapting to our environments and always tackling surprises head on. Expect the unexpected is a motto we work by and it has helped us a great deal. I may be feeling apprehensive and a little anxious right now, but I know once we get to Texas, those feelings with dissipate. I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to go back to Texas and help in this humanitarian effort. This experience changes you as a person and to be able to go back for a third season gives you a bittersweet feeling. Right now, I am going to spend the holidays with my family and thinking about the adventure that lies ahead in South Texas. I am unbelievably excited to be a part of this humanitarian effort and I am ready to start another field season with our amazing group from UIndy and Texas State University.

Jessica

Five Years of Humanitarian Science in the TX Borderlands

December 27, 2017Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflectionslathamke

Jan 2018 Beyond Borders Team photo. — Jan 2018 Beyond Borders Team (Leanne, Sammi, Dr. Latham, Jordan & Jessica)

As our departure date of January 2nd quickly approaches, I can’t help but think about our work in south Texas over the last five years. Since 2013 I have volunteered with colleagues at Texas State University and Baylor University, among others, to aid in migrant identification efforts along the US-Mexico Border. Tens of thousands of migrants have lost their lives crossing the border in the past decade. Changing border policies have funneled crossers from their traditional migration routes into more clandestine and dangerous routes. Since the number of deaths in Texas has only recently reached mass disaster proportions, resources for migrant identification and repatriation are sparse. Many counties chose to bury the unidentified migrants discovered in their jurisdictions due to lack of funding to conduct the costly forensic investigations into their identity. In 2013, a group of volunteer forensic scientists began exhuming the unidentified migrants, so these individuals can begin their journey towards identification and repatriation home. With no governmental resources available, I made the trip with several UIndy students as volunteers to provide a needed forensic service to a marginalized group of individuals. In January I will make my 7th trip to South Texas with a UIndy team to volunteer our time and expertise to this humanitarian crisis. We will be working with Texas State University to locate and exhume the remains of undocumented migrants who died after crossing the border and were buried without identification in pauper graves.

The US/Mexico border wall is 40 times more deadly than the entire history of the Berlin Wall. More people have died in the desert in the southern US than Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 combined. Those that migrate know their odds are slim. But slim odds are better than the institutionalized violence and extreme poverty they face at home. This is a silent mass disaster that many Americans are not aware of. I volunteer not only to provide a specialized forensic science to a community that needs it, but also to immerse my students in a situation that will provide them a more valuable learning experience than any book. Here they can practice the scientific skills they have learned at UIndy in a real world context, in addition to learning social responsibility and an appreciation of common humanity. Year after year I have seen my students grow as they experience a harsh reality very different from their own privileged lives. I use this work to teach my students, children and family about being thankful, humble and kind. In a time when many question the entitlement of the next generation, I see many young people (from our university and others) leaning humility, compassion and understanding in a way that would not be possible without immersion in this humanitarian crisis.

~KEL