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Exhibit Information

The following organizations offer information about human rights, environmental protection, migrant artifacts, and border security in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Coalición de Derechos Humanos
www.derechoshumanosaz.net
No More Deaths
www.nomoredeaths.org
Humane Borders
www.humaneborders.org
Samaritans
www.tucsonsamaritans.org
Defenders of Wildlife
www.defenders.org
Border Film Project
www.borderfilmproject.com
Border Stories, A Mosaic Documentary
borderstories.org
Border Action Network
borderaction.org
BorderLinks
borderlinks.org

Background

Entering the United States without authorization is now a life-threatening journey and requires a great deal of courage and physical endurance. Whereas once, undocumented migrants - the majority from Mexico and Central America - slipped into the U.S. through crowded border cities, they now must walk long distances through harsh and sparsely inhabited terrain. This historic geographic shift in unauthorized border traffic is the result of Border Patrol operations in the late 1990s, which aimed to shift border crossers away from urban centers and into remote rural areas. The Coalición de Derechos Humanos (2010) estimates that 5,000 bodies have been recovered from the southern U.S. borderlands. View Report

Altar Valley, Arizona Borderlands

As undocumented migrants travel north, they transform the landscape in small, yet significant ways through the things they leave behind, from shelters and shrines to quotidian objects. Water bottles, food, medications, clothes, as well as objects with personal meaning such as family photographs, books, religious cards and candles, and hand-embroidered cloths (bordados) are lost, discarded, or deposited along the way, producing cultural landscapes signaling intimate experiences as well as personal and collective identifications.

How and why do migrants rearrange landscapes, marking them with signs of everyday necessities, spiritualities, and homes? In what ways do such cultural landscapes make claims to space in the context of highly charged contests over national belonging in the U.S.? Do landscapes of migration play a part in forming a collective identity for a people made invisible by U.S. immigration policies? To contemplate these questions, we draw your attention to three figures that recur in the photographs: the Virgin Mary, fences, and water bottles.

References

The following references offer additional information about the landscapes of migration and U.S. border security.

Defenders of Wildlife. 2006. On The Line: The Impacts of Immigration Policy on Wildlife and Habitat in the Arizona Borderlands. Washington, DC: Defenders of Wildlife. View Report

Nevins, Joseph. 2008. Dying to Live: a story of US immigration in an age of global apartheid. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Publishers.

Rubio-Goldsmith, Raquel, M. Melissa McCormick, Daniel Martinez, Inez Magdalena Duarte. 2006. The "funnel effect" and recovered bodies of unauthorized migrants processed by the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, 1990-2005. The Binational Migration Institute, University of Arizona. View Report

Sundberg, Juanita. 2008. "Trash-Talk" and the Production of Quotidian Geopolitical Boundaries in the United States-Mexico Borderlands, Social & Cultural Geography, 9(8) pp. 871-890.

U.S. Government Accountability Office. 2006. Illegal Immigration: Border-Crossing Deaths Have Doubled Since 1995; Border Patrol's Efforts to Prevent Deaths Have Not Been Fully Evaluated. View Report

U.S. Government Accountability Office. 2004. Border Security. Agencies Need to Better Coordinate Their Strategies and Operations on Federal Lands. View Report

Migrants Pray at Virgin of Guadalupe Shrine - Sasabe, Mexico 2007

Sasabe is a border town in Mexico where many undocumented migrants begin their journey.

Migrant's Water Jug and Coyote Skull - Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge 2007

Many undocumented migrants traverse the vast and uninhabited Sonora Desert in hopes of crossing through undetected. To travel north through Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, undocumented migrants follow a guide.

Red Bull Can, Migrant Camp - Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge 2007

Migrants often mark the location of a camp with bandanas, water jugs or in this case the popular energy drink Red Bull. A marker also may indicate the location of a migrant's death.

Migrants' Shelter - Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge 2007

Undocumented migrants often build shelters that blend into the landscape to shield them from the sun and avoid detection by Border Patrol helicopter patrols.

Migrant's Water Jug on Fence Post - San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area 2007

Undocumented migrants often pass through protected areas like the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area in eastern Arizona.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine Along the Migrant Trail 2007

According to recent Tohono O'odham lore, a local woman saw the Virgin of Guadalupe in this sahuaro crowned with the white blossoms of summer. The cactus quickly became a shrine. Undocumented migrants regularly visit the shrine.

Migrant's Discarded Bike and Baboquivari Peak - Altar Valley 2007

Sacred to the Tohono O'Odham nation, Baboquivari Mountain serves as an important landmark for undocumented migrants as they pass through the Altar Valley on the east side of the Baboquivari range.

Migrants' Spiritual Niche Along the Migrant Trail 2007

This shrine is set in a canyon wall along a frequently used migrant trail. Migrants adorn the shrine with photographs of their loved ones and prayer cards featuring the patron saint of their homeland.

Migrant Spiritual Niche - Close up

Along with coins, matches, candles, prayer cards, family photographs, scapularios, migrants leave cards featuring the patron saint of their homeland. Seen here are the Virgin of Guadalupe (important throughout Mexico), the Virgin of Juquila (worshiped in Oaxaca), the Virgin of San Juan de los Lagos (worshiped in Jalisco) and Toribio Romo (a priest who was martyred during the Mexican Revolution and regularly appears to distressed migrants in the desert).

Virgen Morena de Guadalupe Shirt by Highway 286 2007

The figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe, also called the Patroness of the Americas is featured on many objects migrants take on their journeys, from prayer cards, bandanas, to t-shirts.

Horseshoe Shrine - Arivaca Hills 2007

This shrine appeared in 2006 at a rest stop along a heavily used migrant trail about 30 miles north of the U.S. border. That undocumented migrants carry prayer candles such great distances is a testament to their faith.

Sour Melons Gourds & Water Carrier Made from a Sweatshirt 2007

Water is heavy and undocumented migrants often find creative ways of easing their load. The drying sour melons signal the end of the summer rains.

Shrine and Bus for Detained Migrants - Highway 286 2007

If U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehend undocumented migrants, they are turned over to Wackenhut, a private contractor who transports them to a detention center for processing. Migrants often await transport for long hours without food and water.

Water Bottle and Teddybear 2009

Children often make the journey north with family or to reunite with parents.

Vehicle Barrier - US-Mexico Border Enforcement 2008

This sweatshirt is wrapped around a vehicle barrier post that forms the southern boundary of the Tohono O'odham nation in the United States.

Brassiere - Migrant Camp, Green Valley

Women's undergarments in trees may indicate sites where migrant women have been raped.

Jesús Malverde Shrine - Arivaca 2007

Jesús Malverde is the patron saint of narco-traffickers.

Shrine Frequented by Migrants - South Sierrita Mountains 2007

This shrine is located near a pickup site deep in the Sierrita Mountains.

Faith, Fencing & Fate: New Cultural Landscapes of Migration in the United States-Mexico Borderlands