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Pre-Reflections for the Trip of a Lifetime

Reflections, Snapshots
Packing suitcases and my US passport to travel to Falfurrias, Texas.
Packing my suitcases and US passport to travel to Falfurrias, Texas.

There is much I have been preparing for as it gets closer to the day we leave to travel to Falfurrias, Texas. I’ve spent days preparing by writing lists for everything I’ll possibly need, shopping, and packing my bags. I’ve thought about how I will be able to handle the environment of South Texas and what things I can preemptively do to help me physically in the field. In reflectance, I find that this is just another aspect of the privilege in how I live my life. Those who cross the border from Mexico to Texas don’t have the luxury to buy clothing to protect themselves from the harsh vegetation including thick pants and leather gloves. Migrants, likewise, don’t have the time or funds to prepare ahead of time like taking enough food, water, and medications to aid them on their journey. My teammates and I are privileged to be traveling with others who know the area, support us, and are very prepared in case of an emergency. These individuals embark on this journey with minimal supplies and guidance driven solely by a want for a better life. The experiences of migrants making the journey to cross into the United States will be nothing like our own. This experience will help me attempt to understand the challenges millions of migrants face entering and living in the United States.

I have gotten increasingly nervous each day as it gets closer when we leave on January 3rd. I’ve been most concerned with how I can mentally prepare for the things I will see while searching the Texas wilderness for migrants in distress. I’ve found that I am a very empathetic person and tend to place myself in other’s shoes in order to attempt and understand what they are experiencing. In reading literature on migrant experiences, it has become more and more clear how this experience will test my ability to handle my emotions in the field. The personal accounts that I read about are sometimes hard for me to understand or digest fully. Seeing the physical remains of migrants’ journeys in person and hearing stories from those who’ve dedicated their lives to searching will likewise be hard but necessary for my growth. Talking with everyone on the team and back home can remind me to keep a positive attitude amid such an emotionally challenged environment. I am very thankful that I will be traveling with a team with which I feel comfortable asking questions and expressing how I am feeling.

The Beyond Borders humanitarian mission to the Texas-Mexico border is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There will be so much for me to learn and experience while in the field searching for individuals who may have gone missing en route. Being able to experience hands-on the reality of this humanitarian crisis and the culture of these areas will be truly enlightening. I am very excited to learn from and work with Remote Wildlands Search and Recovery and with the South Texas Human Rights Center. Hopefully, the work I get to do in the Texas Borderlands will help aid in individuals keeping the basic human rights they are entitled to. This experience, I foresee, will be life-changing and solidify whether I want to work as a forensic anthropologist in human rights contexts.

Chastidy

Image of the Beyond Borders team members in Eagle Pass, TX

We Decide What to Do With the Time That is Given Us

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

The field of forensic anthropology has grown due to disasters. While most of forensic anthropology practice occurs on single death cases, it’s the disasters that have brought attention to and interest in the field out of the need for it to grow. Genocide and mass graves in Eastern Europe and Latin America first warranted the training of large teams of forensic anthropologists. The September 11 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, aircraft crashes, large fires in the western US and the prolonged mass disaster along the US-Mexico border have drawn students to the field. Once each disaster is addressed we wonder if the field will be saturated with practitioners, but there’s always another disaster. Some of them are sudden, unexpected and relatively short in terms of investigation. While others are prolonged in terms of deaths and investigations.

Team members exhuming a grave in Eagle Pass with Deputy White in the background.
Exhumations in Eagle Pass

With all mass disasters we ask “why” and “how” this could possibly happen. With the US-Mexico border crisis these questions have lingered for decades with no response. Addressing immigration policy or the global circumstances that have created the mass migration event are often out of the hands of the forensic scientists, but we can address questions of and advocate for policies that focus on the forensic investigations and analyses. For decades I’ve watched colleagues in Arizona and Texas work to find creative ways to address the large volume of migrant deaths with little state provided resources. My colleagues in Texas are not paid to do this work, they have chosen to devote their time and resources to locating, identifying and repatriating those who died crossing the border.

Two team members removing dirt from a burial with shovels.
Removing loose dirt from above the burials in Eagle Pass

What I have always struggled with, second to the fact that a large number of deaths occur on our border in the first place, is the lack of support for this work. There are always family members and friends that vocally display their lack of support for the volunteers working in the Texas borderlands. Their opposition is usually politically driven and narrowly focused.  We decide what to do with the time given us. For my colleagues it means dedicating themselves to this work daily. For the Beyond Borders Team it means shorter bursts of intensive work and immersion in this crisis.  The students learn practical forensic skills that will prepare them for a future in the field. They are being provided with an opportunity to grow and expand their skills, which should be celebrated. Yet that is often overshadowed by the context in which they are working. Every member of the Beyond Borders team has chosen to spend their time working on this large-scale identification project. They have chosen to work towards providing closure to families of the deceased and have chosen to put themselves in often uncomfortable and difficult situations in order to grow as professionals and as people.

Three team members measuring the location of a grave marker to create a map.
Mapping in Eagle Pass

We decide what to do with the time given us. We can decide to be positive and work towards positive change, we can do nothing or we can work against it.  More and more often I find myself worrying about the physical and mental health of my closest colleagues working regularly at the border. With what I experience after just short trips, I can’t begin to imagine how they feel with the daily weight of this work. So, if you see a smile out of place in our work photos, do not misinterpret it as making light of the situation. It’s usually a smile at someone we admire, a smile at someone we are happy to see, a smile at someone we are watching grow or just a smile that helps us get though whatever difficult situation we are facing at the moment.  If you have a forensic scientist or last responder in your life, take a moment to check in on them. You have no idea what they see, hear and experience on a daily basis. Whether you agree with the context of their work or not, they are choosing to make a positive contribution to society regardless of the emotional and physical toll it might take on them.

Two team members removing dirt from a burial with a shovel and mattock.
Breaking up the hard top soil in Eagle Pass

The purpose of this blog is to bring awareness to the situation in the Texas borderlands through the perspective of the forensic scientists working there. We try to provide you an insight you will not get from watching or reading the news. While there are so many challenging, difficult and disheartening things I could focus on in my reflections of our time at the border, I always try to highlight something positive.  I am so incredibly proud of the hard work and growth I witnessed in all the students at the cemetery during this trip to Eagle Pass. It was physically challenging and emotionally difficult yet they started and ended each day with professionalism and motivation, learned to work as a team, witnessed the complexity of a crisis with no end in sight, and chose to spend their time serving others in a time of crisis and disaster.
~KEL

Returning & Reflections

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections
Two team members setting up the datum
Establishing our datum

Our trip to Eagle Pass felt like it was over just as quickly as it started. It was so good to see Don, Eddie, and Dr. Spradley again. This was my first real forensic archaeology experience with manually excavating and exhuming burials. There were distinct moments during this trip when I’d be working, sit back, and think “Wow, I have learned so much today.” and each day that feeling only grew stronger. I noticed during the later days of the week how much the team had grown together and were able to work as a cohesive unit. We became so skilled with a trowel that, when we left, our hands stayed formed to holding a trowel (dubbed trowel claw). It was also a new experience to learn how to do this work with the media present. It was a bit daunting, but it did not deter our work ethic.

In my pre-trip post, I said we read about what we may encounter but nothing could truly prepare us for what we’d see and learn, and I can confidently say I was right about that. While providing forensic anthropology in Indiana, there is a lot we are removed from, especially in regards to the border crisis. I have never dealt with death at this scale. In our last debrief, I discussed how many more layers of the forensic anthropology field and the border crisis this trip has exposed me to. It has caused me to recognize and connect these different levels of our work that previously felt disjointed. We work with the individuals brought to our lab under many different circumstances. We have searched the Texas Borderlands and seen evidence of migrant travel, ranging from food wrappers to clothing items, leaving me constantly thinking of where these individuals are and if they are okay. We searched for burials and found individuals discarded alongside miscellaneous trash. We examined the personal belongings of these individuals and their bodies for identifying characteristics. This, especially, is something I am not used to as I am more familiar with analyzing mostly skeletal remains. It can feel invasive to do some of these things, but its to be able to give these individuals their best chance at getting home to their families. I saw their IDs and what they looked like to their loved ones. I heard the family member of one of the individuals previously exhumed speak about their loved one they lost and a bit of their background. To hear them say “I was waiting for them to tell me he opened his eyes, to tell me he’d take another breath.” It’s heart wrenching. So many people are sharing this experience, and so many people don’t even know what is happening besides what is being shown on the news.

View of the Rio Grande
Rio Grande

This work is heavy. These are hard things to have on your mind and definitely aren’t things that will fade. These trips allow us to meet some of the individuals working often daily with this border crisis, ranging from activists groups and media to cemetery workers and forensic scientists. Regardless of the motivation or background, each person I met has the same goal, to do the best we can to care for these individuals, and that is one great piece of solace, knowing there are more people out there who care. No one deserves to be treated in the manner we found these individuals in. No one deserves to have to experience the treacherous journey these individuals endured. Each trip reveals so much that we don’t know is going on or don’t know the severity of it.

The team taking measurements at the cemetery
Team taking measurements

Annnnnd now I am back home. Preparing for school to start, and It feels like the most extreme 360. I very naively thought that after two trips to Texas my transition back to normal life in Indiana would be easier, and I was very wrong. This trip was such an eye-opening experience for me. I learned SO much in such a short period of time skill wise and even more so about the border crisis. I get to share my experience and help others understand what really is going on. It is a privilege to be able to do so. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Latham for allowing me to be a part of this team and this project. The lessons I learn from these trips, personal and skill-wise, are exceptional, and I am proud to have been a part of the team and the work we’ve done.

–Izzy

Jan 2023 Team