Beyond Borders | UIndy Humanitarian Forensic Science Team

A trip of “firsts”

December 29, 2017Reflectionsrizorl

11 days (as I write this). I cannot believe that we only have 11 days before we leave for Texas! I have been so caught up in final exams, presentations, and finishing PhD applications that it hasn’t hit me until now that we are leaving so soon. I am both excited and nervous for this trip. There will be many “firsts,” and because of this, I am not quite sure what to expect!

This will be our first trip to Willacy County. This means that we do not know what the soil consistency will be like, what the weather will be like, what the burials will consist of, or how the local community will react that what we are doing. Willacy Co. is located about one hour northeast of McAllen, TX, where the Sacred Heart Humanitarian Respite Center is located. During our trip last January, we traveled from Falfurrias to McAllen to visit the respite center and aid the volunteers with welcoming, feeding, and clothing the individuals who crossed the border and sought asylum. It will be nice to be so close to McAllen and have the constant reminder of this amazing organization and all of the incredible individuals who volunteer their time and goods to help these migrants.

This will be our first time conducting exhumations on private property. The exhumations in Falfurrias and Rio Grande City both took place in county cemeteries, so this aspect of the trip will be a completely new experience for all of us. I look forward to learning and understanding how to navigate this process a new way.

This will be my first time having a mapping apprentice. In past field seasons, I have been on my own when creating the hand-drawn maps, and I have relied on my judgement and experience when setting up a baseline and choosing data points. This trip, I will need to teach and involve Sammi in all aspects of the map-making process so she can continue this task after I leave UIndy. Choosing points in the field to create a map is actually a very complex decision-making process! It involves a constant dialogue in your head, going through a million “what-if” scenarios and asking yourself numerous questions before you decide on a specific technique that will work most efficiently. Over the past two field seasons and numerous forensic cases, I have learned how to navigate map-making in a way that makes sense to me personally. This season, I will have to learn how to teach this to Sammi. I think this will be difficult because creating a map is a fluid process – every scene is different and every cemetery we have been to in Texas has been different and has required a unique mapping process. I think this concept, as well as the small nuances that go into mapping decision-making, will be the hardest to teach Sammi. I hope that I can teach her in a way that makes sense to her and that she can adapt to other mapping endeavors in the future!

Leann mapping in points. — Mapping – Starr Co 2017

I am so excited and grateful to be able to return to South Texas for the third time to aid in this amazing humanitarian mission! I am filled with both excitement and nerves for all of the new things we will experience in Willacy Co. Despite all of these “firsts,” I am incredibly confident that our team will be able to accomplish everything we set out to and more.

See you soon, Texas.
–Leann

Making a List, Checking it Twice

December 28, 2017Reflectionslewmanj

Packing List: work boots; field pants (x3); lab shirts (x3); long johns (x3); lab cap; beanie; work gloves; belt; first aid kit; water bottle; sunglasses; chap stick…

Reading List: Looking for Esperanza, Paramo, A. (2012); The Land of Open Graves, Leon, J.D.(2015); Showdown in the Sonoran Desert, Rose, A. (2012); Digging for the Disappeared, Rosenblatt, A. (2015); Drug War and Capitalism, Paley, D. (2015)…

To-Do List: last minute X-mas shopping; clean house; do laundry; wash dogs; pick up final necessities for Texas trip…

Music List: Myela, Nick Mulvey; O Holy Night, Bastille 2016 rendition; Papales Mojados, Chambao; Nino Soldado, Ska-P; Mal Bicho, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs; Solo le Pido a Dios, Mercedes Sosa; Nobody Knows, The Lumineers; This Land is Your Land, Woody Guthrie; A Change is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke; Equal Rights, Peter Tosh; Where is the Love, Black Eyed Peas; We are the World, various artists (1885 and 2010)…

This time of year many people are making lists to make sure their holidays are picture perfect. This year my lists abound, yet as I peer through them I can’t help but think of the lists one would make as they wrap up their life to trek across a vast and expansive desert in pursuit of something better. The personal effects recovered with the remains of those who were not fortunate enough to complete their journey reveal a heart wrenching tale: prayer cards; religious pendants; family photos; a few changes of clothes, and little else.

I have moved many times in my life (Florida>various places across Central Texas> Indianapolis, Indiana) so the prospect of moving hundreds to thousands of miles is something I am familiar with. For me, though, these moves involved expansive lists including garage sales, moving trucks, and the knowledge that on the other side my worldly belongings that I have acquired throughout the years may provide a sense of home in a new and unfamiliar place. It is hard for me to fathom being forced to leave literally everything behind but a small backpack of necessities to travel, largely by foot, hundreds to thousands of miles across formidable landscapes to a destination likely unknown. Add on top of this uncertainty the various barriers (legal, language, cultural, political, financial, etc.) that await these individuals and it’s hard to hold back tears just thinking about it.

What hell must these people be faced with that they feel that this is their only option? This is the type of question that I ask myself as I prepare mentally to travel to South Texas with the UINDY’s Beyond Borders team in January. Having been raised in Texas and having prior involvement with the border crisis in South Texas during my undergrad. career at Texas State University, I have quite a different perspective than my fellow Beyond Borders peers. I am intimately familiar with the climate, landscape, and culture of south and central Texas as well as the unspeakable tragedy that is the US-Mexico border crisis, so the challenges I anticipate are purely mental/emotional.

In light of this, I look forward to aiding in bringing closure to the families of these victims who do not know where their loved ones have ended up. I look forward to long, brutal days in the South Texas winter as I lend my hands and heart to this noble cause. I look forward to a day when people are no longer forced to leave their homes and families due to socio-political turmoil. I look forward to a day when people who face different challenges are welcomed as neighbors and not walled out. I look forward to the prospect of lasting unity that is typically only instilled by mass disaster.

I leave you all with one final list; my Christmas Wishlist:

Peace and justice for the victims of the US-Mexico border crisis.

–Jordan

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