Latest Posts

This holiday season, I am fortunate enough to be spending time at home with my family in west Michigan. In light of all of the family fun times and holiday cheer, I find myself thinking of those who aren’t as fortunate as myself – those who are unable to spend time with some of their family members who are lost or missing. So many take for granted the opportunity to be with family during the holidays, and it is all too easy to forget those who do not have that opportunity. As the day of the UIndy team’s departure to South Texas fast approaches, my own family has been asking me: “Are you nervous?” “Are you excited?” “Are you ready?”

Yes. YES. ….I think so?

I am absolutely both very excited and maybe a little bit nervous to embark on this journey. I’m generally not the kind of person who gets very nervous; I like to take things as they happen and try not to stress myself out unnecessarily ahead of time. However, this journey is something that I don’t think any first-timer can truly be “ready” for. I am definitely ready to get down there and get to work, but there is no way to predict what might be in store for our team. So yes, I think I am ready. But it is very likely that I will be proven wrong once I am down in the middle of everything, though in the best of ways. No matter how much I read about this project, no matter how many lists I prepare, no matter how many reps I do in the gym, I know that unexpected and exciting things are going to surprise us during this experience and that I, and everyone else on the team, will be challenged in ways that we cannot even begin to predict.

It is going to be an adventure, and it will be a challenging one, but I know that by keeping in mind the purpose of our work in South Texas – to help families finally discover what happened to their loved ones so that they may find peace – will give me, and everyone else on our team, the strength to push through and accomplish amazing things.

So yes, I am excited and nervous and ready to get to South Texas and do my part in helping make a difference in the lives of so many.

Happy Holidays!

Erica

I cannot believe that we are leaving for Texas in less than two weeks. It seems like just yesterday that we had our first group meeting, learning what this field season is going to entail.  I have been so busy with finals and the end-of-the-semester scurry to get tasks finished that this timeline hasn’t really sunk in. Now that the semester is over and I have no more deadlines to meet, this experience is becoming more and more real to me.  I am starting to feel nervous and anxious, not knowing exactly how this experience will challenge me both physically and emotionally.  Despite the nerves, I am so excited and filled with gratitude about participating in this wonderful effort.

Ever since I learned about the humanitarian work my school is involved in down in South Texas, I’ve known that I wanted to be a part of it. I have been given the amazing opportunity to participate in the excavation of migrants who perished crossing the border, and it is my first time joining this effort.  I have tried to prepare myself by reading the blog and hearing stories from those who have participated in past field seasons, but I don’t think I will ever be truly prepared for what I am going to experience down there.

We were just informed that in addition to exhuming remains from Sacred Heart Cemetery, we will also be volunteering at the Sacred Heart Humanitarian Respite Center.  Here, we will be assisting migrants as they prepare to meet their family members awaiting them in the United States. I am excited for this experience, but also a little anxious.  I cannot imagine what these individuals went through in the detention centers, and I cannot fathom the emotions they are feeling when they arrive at the Respite Center. Growing up in Michigan and now living in Indiana, I have not been exposed to or personally affected by the crisis on the border.  Volunteering at the Respite Center will be my first personal experience with this crisis, and I think it will challenge me the most.  Click here to read more about the Sacred Heart Humanitarian Respite Center on our blog.

As for now, I will begin packing and gathering all the additional items I will need for our 10 days in Texas.  These next two weeks I will spend educating myself more on the border crisis, while trying to mentally and physically prepare myself for this endeavor. I am so incredibly grateful for this opportunity and the experiences I will gain from it.  I hope that I am able to give as much as I know I will gain.

Leann

The Beyond Borders trip was a learning opportunity on many fronts. Observing and participating in this interdisciplinary effort to address the crisis of mass death at the US-Mexico border was, at once, fascinating, heartbreaking, and encouraging. The conditions of poverty, violence, and structural inequality fueling this problem are undeniably complex and have been fairly well documented by academic scholars, investigative journalists, and human rights organizations. Less well documented are on-the-ground efforts aimed at alleviating migrant vulnerability and invisibility of perished migrants and families whose loved ones have gone missing in US borderlands. I have long been fascinated by how non-governmental organizations and the state define and address the needs of the most vulnerable among us. And, working with the UIndy forensic science team has afforded me the opportunity to learn about the different facets of migrant death response in south Texas. What I witnessed was, in part, a moment within a broader process of developing advocacy networks and forging professional alliances between folks with very different skill sets and expertise. This interdisciplinary effort will, no doubt, continue to evolve in response to the very specific conditions of state (non)response to this pressing set of concerns. There is much to be learned from how those on the front line continue to navigate the sociopolitical dynamics of mass death at the boundaries of the state.

I am particularly grateful for the chance to have learned about the (relatively recent) history of the crisis in Brooks County from those working on the front lines as forensic experts, law enforcement, and advocates for coordinated state response. I am also very grateful to have learned from local human rights activists and social justice warriors who work tirelessly to build justice at the border by extending compassion, building alliances, and demanding the realization of rights for migrants and their families. And, of course, the UIndy team extended to me an amazing opportunity to learn about processes and techniques of identification; from skeletal analysis and processing of personal affects to the ins-and-outs of missing persons database registry, UIndy team members were patient and gracious hosts. I am indebted to all those who shared with me, however briefly, their time, knowledge, and expertise.

At the end of the trip, I’ve taken what amounts to a “crash course” in conditions of perished migrant identification and repatriation. The lessons I learned about the complexities of migrants’ routes and the structural and physical conditions of their deaths were uncomfortable and disquieting; death at the border is as tragic as it is needless. The lessons I learned about efforts to alleviate the suffering of families missing loved ones and migrants en route, however, offered incredible testament to the difference we can make when we apply the tools of our varied disciplines in service of social problems and in the spirit of collaboration.

Dr Alyson O’Daniel