3/24/2018 0 Comments Friday, March 23, 2018This morning we had an early wake up and drove all the way to Tucson to spend the day. I think we can all agree that this was one of the coolest landscapes we’ve seen yet. A rough mountain line spanned the horizon and everywhere you looked there was another species of cacti. Maria called it a “cactus amusement park.” Our first stop was the home of Ed and Debbie, a couple that heads the Tucson Samaritans. The group drops water at popular trails for migrants crossing the border to Arizona. This dangerous trek kills three to four percent of migrants. Ed, a former geology professor, created crossing maps to determine where it’s best to leave water, mostly depending on where there are the most deaths in the area. The maps were interesting to see because they portrayed how systematic the crossings of the desert are, and how dynamic this trail system is. Trail popularity is constantly changing, and the success of the water drops largely depends on determining the timeline of the trail. We also talked about the issue surrounding the personal effort that border control workers put into diminishing these resources provided by the Tucson Samaritans. Border control slashes the water bottles dropped by the group, for no reason but to hinder access to water during the crossings. This brutality is often justified with the argument that the harder it is to cross the desert, the less people will attempt to come into the United States. The dessert was once thought of as a barrier between Mexico and the United States, and now more and more migrants are making the trek despite the increasingly arduous conditions. This goes to show that the situations these people face at home often pose greater risk to these migrants than the trek through the dessert. People will find ways to cross the border no matter how taxing the journey may be. After speaking with Ed, we moved to Debbie’s art gallery within the house. Debbie picks up belongings that she finds on the trails while dropping off water. There were discarded shoes, bibles, and water jugs. The story behind most of the artifacts was unknown, as well as the stories of those that left them behind. Debbie wanted to commemorate the stories of these people by embellishing the belongings with symbols of the migrant journey and Latin American culture. Looking at the belongings was humbling. It seemed that a lot of the objects left behind were brought with migrants as tokens of life in their home country. We imagined the stories of the owners and the hardships they could have experienced to leave these objects behind. Although many of the objects probably did not belong to people that passed away in the dessert, seeing them humanized the deaths we had been talking about in terms of percentages and numbers earlier. We were prompted to imagine who these people were. The one thing that we questioned about her art was whether the presentations of the artifacts would have been more compelling without turning them into “art.” By adding her own input through the symbolism of her embellishments, she was spinning the story of the artifacts in her own way, and I wondered whether the mystery of the objects is where they hold their power. When we returned to the church, there were asylum seekers who had just arrived from the detention center. Many of them were in bad shape due to mistreatment. The people had been eating solely cup noodles for a number of days, and hadn’t had access to showers or clean clothing. A man told us that when he tried to tie his daughter’s hair up at the detention center, he was prevented from doing so by ICE officers. The refugees had been completely dehumanized; each of them came in wearing an ankle monitor, in case they tried to escape the church. We attempted to comfort the refugees, giving them fresh food and clothes, helping the children shower, and listening to their stories. There was a lot of confusion regarding the batteries for the ankle monitors because ICE had failed to provide every person with a second battery and charger. The refugees without extra batteries were afraid of the disorder and having to face ICE officers again. Each of these refugees had to wake up around one in the morning, and walk to the church’s gate to pick up their batteries and chargers. Eleven ICE officers had come to deliver the batteries. We still don’t know the reason for why this many were needed. The church was severely lacking in Spanish speakers available to help these refugees. There were only three Spanish speakers from the church, with two of them being sanctuary members. Because there was so much confusion that needed be communicated in terms that exceeded basic Spanish, we wondered how the church usually deals with these situations, without having so many of us speaking Spanish. One of the men from the church said that usually they use translating apps or gesturing. I can only imagine this makes this process much more difficult and scary for the refugees. This experience was overwhelming for many of us. It was surreal to experience all of this the night before we needed to head back to school. Although our trip lasts a week, the stories of the refugees and sanctuary seekers are far from over. After being so consumed with their experiences, it is strange to think that soon our personal issues at Princeton could take priority. I’m still unsure how what I’ve learned during this trip will fit into my life back home. I think this is something a lot of us need to come to terms with. Author
Olivia Kusio
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