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Left my Heart in Texas

Reflections

Classes are done and I’ve finally handed in my last term paper for the semester, but now it’s time to switch gears and start planning and packing for Texas. In truth, I’ve been waiting all year for this trip. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to go again. The work we’ve done in Texas has left a lasting impression on me and I’ve been thinking and reflecting on it all year. In quiet moments, I often find myself thinking about all the border crossers and their journeys to get to somewhere safer than the chaos that they’re leaving. I think about all the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, and so on that are wondering why they haven’t heard from their loved ones and where they are. My heart goes out to them, truly.

What I most look forward to this trip is volunteering at the South Texas Human Rights Center (STHRC). Although, I love doing laboratory work and the skeletal analyses we conduct at Texas State University, it’s sometimes nice to get out of the lab. At times being in the lab makes me feel isolated from the problem happening at the south Texas-Mexico border. I know that our work in helping to identify border crossers is important, but when we’re out in the community working with other organizations and sometimes the border crossers themselves, I can actually see the direct impact our work is making.

I am excited to help build and maintain the water stations again at STHRC. I look forward to the long rides, down hot dusty roads to fill up each of the water stations dotted along the various routes in Falfurrias. I won’t even mind the prickly little burr plants that sometimes surround the stations. They get stuck on our socks and shoes and as I start to pack, I’m still finding a couple that managed to make it home with me on my field gear. The water stations were tough work last time, but it’s worth it if even one person finds a station and gets the lifesaving water that they need.

Justin and another volunteer repairing a water station.

I’m also excited about seeing all of our friends in Falfurrias and at Texas State University. I look forward to working with them all again and can’t wait to see how much progress they’ve made since the last time we visited. For now, I will continue to pack and get my life in order before we make our trip to Texas this weekend.

–Amanda

“Information Overload”: Background

Human Rights, Migrant Death

I’ve been away from the blog for a while, but I’ve been working in and with Brooks County since August. I learn more about the crisis every day, and I figured I would use this blogging season to share a few different components of the work we do regarding missing persons at the South Texas Human Rights Center (STHRC) and at Operation Identification at Texas State University. Trying to explain everything at once is extremely complex, so I will try and break down different steps in a series of blog posts that will follow this one.

For this post, I’ll share some background information. For the past nine months I’ve been working at the South Texas Human Rights Center as the Forensic Anthropology Fellow. Currently, I am working at Dr. Kate Spradley’s lab at Texas State University working as the coordinator of the Missing Persons Unit at Operation Identification. Despite the change in physical location, the job nearly remains the same: to facilitate the investigations of persons missing on the Texas-Mexico border.

Given the broad scope of the job, every day is different. Some days are spent completely at the computer, making phone calls and working with the inbox of my email to make sure that the right people know about people who are missing; sometimes I’m emailing a medical examiner, other times I’m on the phone with an Arizona NGO to get intricate details about the circumstances around the disappearance of someone. Other days are spent bouncing between offices, trying to figure out what works well and what needs improvement so that we can find people faster. I’ve spent some afternoons being the go-between for families who are scared to talk to law enforcement but need to find out about their loved ones. And more recently, I’ve spent a morning or afternoon with Dr. Spradley and Dr. Tim Gocha analyzing the skeletal remains of unidentified persons that were exhumed on our first two trips a few years back.

I’ve learned so much over the past nine months. I’ve seen success stories and horror stories. And if there is one pattern that I’ve recognized, it’s that success only occurs through collaboration, communication, transparency, and respect. It is my intention with my next four blog posts to show that not one part of the story is any more important than another. The volunteers who take the missing persons calls are just as important as the DNA analysts, who are just as important as the anthropologists analyzing bones and the undergraduate volunteers cleaning and organizing the clothing found with the bones. Not any single individual, organization, or agency is more important than any other.

In my next post, I will discuss Finding Missing Persons: Recent Cases and how the STHRC, in close collaboration with many organizations and agencies, saves lives of people lost in the brush, turning distress calls into rescues. Because we can’t find everyone, and because the STHRC has only been around for a few years, we are always looking for those who are still missing, and so I will then discuss Helping Families Find Their Loved Ones: Long Term Cases. The last two posts of the four-part series will touch on issues I think are not discussed enough. There are many misunderstandings about the identification process, and so I will write about the Investigations of Unidentified Persons: What is an Identification? Finally, I will end on a topic that I personally believe is the least frequently discussed yet most difficult and complex process to understand, Getting Loved Ones Home: The Long Road of Repatriation.

When we first were asked to blog about our experiences, we were told a great way to blog is to “give the reader a glimpse of how you feel and what you see”. Well, a great way to describe the past nine months would be to describe it as an “information overload”, so the next few posts will likely be just that.

Looking forward to seeing Team UIndy next week, and as always, thanks for reading!

~Ryan

Whirlwind

Reflections

Right now, everything seems to be happening all at once, leaving little time to prepare for this upcoming trip to Texas.  We leave in less than a week and finals are just beginning.  Between finishing finals, preparing the lab for our move, and getting ready for Texas, it seems like a never-ending impossibly long list of tasks that need to be accomplished before the end of the week.  It’s scary and yet exhilarating at the same time.

Ever since I first learned about the work we do in Texas, I knew I wanted to go.  I’ve heard the stories about the 2 seasons of back-breaking excavations and the fulfillment of work that will hopefully lead to individuals being returned to their families for a proper burial.  I’ve heard the stories of last year, of the emotional but life changing experiences of interacting with the migrant families at Karnes County Residential Center, of the gratification of building the water stations, and of the knowledge that our work has helped successfully reunite 6 of the deceased with their families.  These stories are the reason why I’m in this program, and why I cannot wait to continue the good work that has been done in the past 3 years and return with my own stories.

For the moment though, my work consists of preliminary packing, passing my classes, and mentally preparing for this emotionally consuming endeavor.  I plan on reviewing my skeletal analysis skills and Spanish before we leave in addition to packing for a climate that I have not been exposed to for awhile.  This wont be my first time to Texas, I used to spend 3 weeks of my summers at ballet camps in Austin and San Antonio.  I remember loving those two cities, and I’m very excited to go to San Marcos and Falfurrias, which I’ve never been to before.

Right now, it feels like I’m trying to get everything ready in a whirlwind of obligations.  But I know that it will all come together and that we’ll all be prepared by the time our flight leaves on Sunday morning.  Words can’t express how grateful I am for this opportunity and the impression it will leave on me and the experiences I will gain from it.  I hope that I’m able to give back just as much.

~Helen