Death in the
Desert On
exhibit, found objects mark border crossers treacherous
passage
By DEMETRIA MARTINEZ
Tucson, Ariz.
Is it an art installation or an altar? At First Christian Church
here a museum-quality display case holds, among other objects, the following:
empty plastic water jugs, a backpack, a baby bottle, soap, Colgate toothpaste,
a hairbrush, a sardine can, a sock and used AeroMexico tickets.
When Mexican migrants fan out across the treacherous Arizona
desert border region, these are some of the things they carry. On foot a person
might cover up to eight to 10 miles a day, especially if he or she doesnt
have to carry a baby. So many try to beat the odds. The exhibit also holds a
stroller and a Caribou bicycle, its tire tubes all shot to hell, punctured by
cactus needles, on the trek through impossible terrain.
We find about a hundred bicycles a week, said the Rev.
Robin Hoover, pastor at First Christian Church and founder of Humane Borders,
which has maintained water stations for migrants, mostly on public lands, in
the most desolate areas of Arizona for more than a year. The United States
Border Patrol has pledged not to target the water stations, and it recently
credited the availability of the large barrels of water with saving 33 lives in
just one day.
The installation in the display case, put together by Maeve Hickey
of Dublin, Ireland, is called Lost and Found: Remnants of a Desert
Passage. She selected items from the hundreds that Humane Borders
volunteers have collected on their frequent trips to haul water to the
stations.
Standing before the glass case, Hoover explained that the Caribou
bike was found about 23 miles north of the border in Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument.
The stroller was found 21 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border at
the Jim Corbett Water Station in Organ Pipe. Named after the deceased Sanctuary
Movement founder, Jim Corbett station has dispensed the most water of all 14
stations Humane Borders maintains.
Weve even found babys cowboy boots with silver
tips, said Hoover. He added that he doesnt know what fate, good or
bad, befell the baby or the owner of the stroller.
Of the many personal hygiene items volunteers find at water
stations: Migrants think theyve made it and now theyre going
to freshen up, Hoover said.
In fact a lot of migrants have no idea where they are in relation
to where they want to end up.
Hoover said most have their sights on Florida, the San Francisco
Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, New Jersey and anywhere in Texas.
Depending on what point they started along Arizonas almost 300-mile
border with Mexico, they press northward: through Organ Pipe Cactus National
Monument, Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, and Cabeza Prieta National
Wildlife Refuge, the Tohono OOdham Indian Reservation, and other, mostly
public, lands.
Some groups have arranged ahead of time for rides that
theyll meet up with in small towns, or at appointed spots along the
highway. Smugglers called coyotes guide some groups for a price, often
proffering false promises of a nearby city where a ride awaits to take them to
their destinations. Still others imagine that Phoenix is just around the
bend.
They push on.
Volunteers come across many socks. When feet swell and burrs and
needles collect in socks, the socks are left behind. The most common metal item
found, Hoover said, is a poor persons version of a Swiss Army knife with
nail clippers, can opener and knife. It is used to cut needles out of clothes
or the body. People also use the instrument to modify their clothing: to cut
off sleeves and shorten pants in triple digit heat. Another item found:
injectable xylocaine to deaden pain.
The Border Patrol has, in the past decade, successfully sealed off
traditional urban points of entry, such as Juarez-El Paso; hence the large
numbers attempting to cross the desert, which in Arizona is mostly under
federal, state, tribal, county or corporate management. The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife officials have permitted Humane Borders to erect poles with flags at a
number of animal watering troughs; the flags bear the symbol of the drinking
gourd from the abolitionist movement -- with water pouring from the dipper.
Humane Borders provides water to address the immediate emergency.
But its ultimate goal is, with other groups, to force changes in U.S.
immigration policy -- to take death out of the migration equation,
as Hoover puts it.
According to the Arizona Daily Star, since Jan. 1, at least
85 immigrants have died attempting to cross into the Border Patrols
Tucson sector.
The length of the entire U.S.-Mexico border is almost 2,000 miles.
Human rights groups estimate that at least one person a day dies trying to
cross it.
Remarking on the display, Hoover said he was not sure why someone
would carry used Aero-Mexico plane tickets although such documents are often
found. Carrying it, an immigrant runs the risk of a border patrol agent using
the plane ticket as evidence of country of origin, a basis for deportation. On
the other hand, there is an advantage. Your name on your person can help
identify your body should you die along the way.
Theres much beyond the display of things found in the
desert, the things that migrants carry.
At Humane Borders church office, there are, among other
items, a babys undershirt, business cards, a cologne bottle, wedding
pictures, crucifixes, a doll, and Five Minutes of Prayers in the
Home, a Spanish language booklet dated March 2002.
The desert holds letters lost or left behind. I love
you, reads a handwritten letter in Spanish. I need you.
I
hope that very soon we can be together forever.
NCR columnist Demetria Martinez lives in Tucson, Ariz.
Related Web sites
Related Web sites Department of
Interior www.doi.gov
Humane
Borders www.humaneborders.org
Immigration and
Naturalization www.ins.usdoj.gov
U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service Southwest Region southwest.fws.gov
National Catholic Reporter, August 2,
2002
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