University of Michigan professor uses lost objects to tell stories of illegal border crossings

Well, at least the author of this piece specifies that the immigrants are illegal. Illegal immigration is a hot-button topic, the more so because anyone who wants to stop it is tagged as a racist against "immigration" - conveniently forgetting that what they want stopped is "illegal" immigration. University of Michigan professor uses lost objects to tell stories of illegal border crossings A University of Michigan professor is amassing an anthropological and archeological treasure chest of remnants found in the American Southwest in an effort to tell little-known stories about illegal immigration and those who cross the U.S.-Mexico border, the Detroit Free Press writes Since beginning his Undocumented Migration Project in 2008, professor Jason De Leon and his students have collected roughly 10,000 worn shoes, socks, backpacks, parts of birth certificates, water bottles and other belongings dropped by migrant workers while crossing the desert. He also combines the artifacts with interviews with people who have made the crossing to illustrate the realities faced by people who sneak into the United States. He’s found, for instance, that white water bottles cause problems for people trying to hide from Border Patrol agents because the white reflects searchlights. But darker-colored jugs heat up too much in the desert sun and are dead giveaways for infrared surveillance technology. De Leon has family members who were migrant workers, he studied archeology in school and wrote his dissertation about ancient stone tools. He says his goal is to show the realities of what it’s like to cross the border and illustrate how the process is “politically gray.” From the Detroit Free Press: U-M professor studies migration through items left in Arizona, Mexico desert The toe and heel of the boot are scuffed and a bit dusty. The sole has a few holes, and a small sock is tucked inside. It now belongs to University of Michigan professor Jason De Leon. The boot was one of the first items he plucked out of the Sonora Desert in Arizona when he started the Undocumented Migration Project in 2008 to put his archaeological and anthropological training to use studying migrant workers who illegally cross the border into the U.S. He still has questions about that boot: How old was the child who wore it? Why did it get left behind? Did a parent have to carry the child the rest of the way? How do you explain to your child why you're walking across the desert? The boot sits on De Leon's desk in his Ann Arbor lab -- one of about 10,000 items he and his students have collected on summer visits. They go into the desert in Arizona and Mexico, looking for spots where migrants have dropped belongings. Some of the fields of artifacts are huge, piles of backpacks big enough to cover a football field. "Anything that's big enough to pick up, I'll pick up," De Leon said. He went to school to study archaeology -- his dissertation is on ancient stone tools -- and has family members who were migrant workers, so he developed an interest in that topic as well. A dinner conversation with a colleague prompted him to act on his interest. He bought a plane ticket to Arizona and ended up standing in the desert, where he picked up the boot. He went back there in June 2009 and began harvesting what he could find. "I really want to shine a light on the process of border crossing," he said. "It's very difficult to directly observe and too often people who write about it either glorify those who are coming across or are very negative about them. The goal for me is to show it's politically gray." De Leon's collection is stashed in boxes all over his lab. They sit everywhere -- full of shoes, Gatorade bottles, parts of birth certificates, diaper bags, buttons, family pictures and food packages. He uses the items he finds to help illustrate the realities of what goes on in the desert. He combines that with interviews of those who have made the crossing to get rarely told stories. For example, he came across large white water bottles in the beginning of his travels. But they caused problems for people trying to hide from Border Patrol agents because the white reflected the searchlights. So those trying to cross the border started wrapping the bottles in dark garbage bags, which De Leon also has in his collection. Companies then started making dark plastic water jugs. But they heat up tremendously, becoming almost undrinkable and creating a major heat signature for Border Patrol agents using infrared to track down people sneaking across, De Leon found. His research has caused a few run-ins with the Border Patrol -- helicopters have swooped down to investigate his group, and armed agents once raided a house where he and his team were staying, suspecting they were drug dealers. But he's still collecting. Some of the items pull at De Leon's heartstrings -- like a small tennis shoe with the words "I love you" and "I'm going to miss your kisses" written on it. But De Leon doesn't want to paint a one-sided picture. That's why his collection also contains homemade backpacks that drug mules use to tote bales of marijuana across the border and special slippers made for drug mules to wear to minimize footprints. De Leon also knows the desert is a rough place -- his team has found bloodied gauze and interviewed migrants who have been raped and abused. By piecing the artifacts and interviews together, De Leon is chronicling border crossing. "This just isn't trash," he said. "These are artifacts. This is history."