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Overview of a person in a cemetery with windmills in the background.

Day 9: A Day of Closure

Community, Environment, Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections
Leann, Sammi, Jessica, and Jordan smiling and dirty after a day of work.
End of day 9: Leann, Sammi, Jessica, and Jordan

As our last day comes to a close, I cannot help but think about the people I am going to miss. I will miss Dr. Spradley, Dr. Gocha, Deputy Don, and the many others who volunteer their time to assist in identifying the individuals who exist as a mere number in the legal system without this humanitarian effort.  I will miss Joe and Luis, who not only came to the cemetery every day with an eager outlook and a focused mind, but proceeded to bring us donuts, fried chicken, fruit, or pistachios to show their appreciation for the hard work we put in. Today has been full of various emotions. Dr. Latham said this has been considerably different than the final day of most previous field seasons. This time, the groups are not working to quickly, carefully uncover the final few individuals before cleaning up and leaving the site. The UIndy team has finished thoroughly investigating every open area of our quadrant for the remains of the unidentified migrants we are searching for. This time, our final day is a day of closure.

A back hoe filling in a pit.
Joe filling our pit with dirt, using the back hoe

As Joe and Luis worked on filling in the large pits we had excavated within, everyone else supervised and cleaned up the site. Texas State came back with coffee, so Joe took a break and came over to our group. During this time, he shared some of his experiences living and working close to the border. It was powerful to hear the sincerity in his voice as he reminded us that people walk enormous distances to cross into the United States in search of a safer life and higher paying jobs, yet die of heat exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration as they journey through the state avoiding checkpoints. This was the most I had interacted with Joe during the trip, but it was valuable to receive a local’s perspective about those suffering in this crisis.

A team member placing flowers on burial markers.
Placing flowers around the marked burials

Once the surface had been entirely leveled out, we gathered plastic flowers, trimmed the grass around grave markers, and stuck the flowers in the ground or tied them in place in front of every burial. Every single burial received at least 3 flowers, thanks to Leann. Leann essentially became the self-established site florist for two hours as we finished marking burials that had been missing a sign. It is so important to Texas State University and University of Indianapolis to show our respect and leave the cemetery even better than we got it. This felt like the perfect final gesture to end the exhumations with a small gift.

Wood grave marker with flowers.I have been very touched by the events of our final day. I was able to see the site in stunning condition before we left to drive back to our hotel for the last time. There is still much to do. Leann and I have some mapping to work on over the weekend, and a long day of travel ahead of us tomorrow. However, I have been absolutely amazed by the amount I have learned from this experience. Texas has been extremely good to the Beyond Borders team this year, and for that we are grateful. We are very fortunate that Dr. Latham’s involvement with this project has allowed us to participate another year and provide students with the opportunity to help provide closure to many families who have lost their loved ones.

Team photo on day 9.
Day 9

–Sammi

Day 8: Why We Are Here

Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

We are exhausted.  In fact, we are beyond exhausted.  Today marks eight straight days of pushing our bodies to the brink of our physical strength.  We have had at least ten to twelve hour days every day since we have been here, on top of hours of blogging, mapping, and debriefing each night, and our bodies can tell.  Despite all of the physical exhaustion and emotional challenges we are facing, we never complain and we never forget why we are here.  We are here because the individuals being exhumed faced far worse conditions than us, conditions we can never even begin to imagine.  We are here because these individuals risked their lives and died seeking a better and safer life for themselves and their families.  We are here because these individuals were buried without any attempts at identification, leaving their families to wonder what happened to them.  We are here because we are fighting for justice for the individuals who have had their basic human rights blatantly ignored.  We are here because of the families missing loved ones, hoping to bring them closure and free them from the pain of not knowing.  This keeps our team going.  We never forget why we are here.

……..

Looking through the border wall.

This morning, we visited “The Wall” in Brownsville, TX.  We stopped at a beautiful park downtown that was right along the wall where we were able to sit and reflect on our experiences thus far.  One of the most powerful things that happened today was noticing the presence of a Peace Pole in the park.

A Peace Pole in Brownsville.This peace pole is part of a larger Peace Pole Project, which consists of  hand-crafted monuments displaying the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in multiple languages.  Peace Poles are found in 180 countries worldwide and serve as constant reminders for us to strive for world peace.  The presence of the Peace Pole in Brownsville served to further remind to our team why we are here.  We are helping bring peace to family members who have missing loved ones.  We are fighting for world peace and to end unnecessary suffering.

Team members at the border wall.
UIndy team at the Wall

After we visited the wall, we went back to the cemetery to exhume the two individuals we found yesterday – pretty straightforward, right? Wrong.  After fully uncovering these burials, we found that there were actually three burials.  We weren’t worried about exhuming a third burial because we still had a half-day to complete all of the work we needed to.  After these three individuals were uncovered, Jessica and I probed an open area outside of our quadrant to feel for anomalies.  Jessica and I each felt an anomaly and investigated them by digging test pits.  Jessica located another burial in her test pit, but I was still only feeling loose soil.  We decided to have Joe and Louis come with the backhoe and carefully remove dirt layers in order to locate these two burials and any other potential burials that lay outside of our quadrant.  In the end, we found three additional burials and had each of them excavated by sundown at 6pm.  We started the day thinking we only had to excavate two individuals and ended up excavating six… for a half-day’s work we are pretty proud of those numbers!

Four team members excavating a burial.
Excavating our 6th burial of the day

Tomorrow, our plan is to head to the cemetery one last time to monitor as Joe and Louis refill in our quadrant. Tomorrow will be a bittersweet day – we worked so hard in our quadrant and moved so much dirt by hand, all remnants of which will be removed in a matter of hours by Joe, Louis, and the backhoe.  However, we are proud of the amount of work we were able to accomplish in just eight short days.  We are confident that we investigated every possible location within and outside our quadrant that these individuals could be buried, ensuring that no one is left behind.  Because that’s why we are here – to exhume every unidentified migrant so they can begin their journey home.

Team photo on day 8.
Day 8 group photo

–Leann

Day 7: A New Day, A New Adventure

Community, Environment, Human Rights, Migrant Death, Reflections

The days are long, the evenings are short, and the nights are even shorter. This field season is different in many ways but has the same common goal as the past three field seasons I have participated in. The goal of recovering migrants in hopes of getting them identified and returning them home to their families. With our fifth field season in progress, we are still learning how each county and funeral home operates and nothing is the same from one place to the next. Some keep better records than others, but the reality is that these funeral homes and counties are doing the best that they can with an overwhelming situation. It won’t change until there is policy change and increased funding for this mass disaster situation.

Team members digging trenches.
Digging Trenches

Today was a hard day of moving a lot of dirt and digging trenches. Although we may feel tired, we are all still motivated in continuing this humanitarian effort. With each burial that we locate, it is an individual whose family is that much closer to finding out what happened to them. It is easy to get lost in the manual labor but once you find a burial, it is like finding that golden ticket.

In the area that we were working in today, we were told originally there were three possible burials. We located six in that area and the ones we found were not even in the direct area that we were originally pointed to. It is no one’s fault because the funeral home is relying on memory to point them out, so it really is a guessing game and thankfully, we have become pretty good at analyzing it.

Exposed trenches in the cemetery.
Our quadrant

After recovering three burials, Joe and Louis were able to come back and help us extend our quadrant outside the original lines. We did this because the group next to us located a burial outside of their quadrant; so, in order for us to do our due diligence, we needed to check our area too. I cannot thank Joe and Louis enough for helping us with this endeavor. Although the dirt is nowhere near as hard as it was in Rio Grande City, it is still extremely difficult to get through by hand. So far, most of the quadrant has been dug by hand so it was nice to have a small break while the back hoe did its job. It is also kind of sad because the amount of work that the backhoe did in 1 hour is more than we could do in a day by hand.

Day 7 team photo.
Day 7

I love being apart of this humanitarian effort and being able to work along side community members and Texas State University. We have had several visitors from when we were in Brooks county and it is nice to see the familiar faces. We only have two more days left in Harlingen and it is a bittersweet feeling. Tomorrow we plan to visit ‘the wall’ which will be a sobering experience and remind us why we are continuing this effort.

Jessica