“A Topography of Death”

⚠️ Trigger warning: This StoryMap includes topics that might be disturbing for some audiences. Please, take care of yourself first and take a break if you need it.

It was a calm Friday afternoon in mid-November at Johns Hopkins University. Mufasa and I were standing on the library's terrace overlooking Gilman Hall where we spent the past six weeks of our lives, bent over the desks of Johns Hopkins Archeological Museum. I turned around and looked through the window into the library to see this:

Sanchita, the brains of the entire operation, was determined to finish the exhibit that night, even though it seemed like it might not be possible before midnight. But all of us had enough. All of us finally needed closure.

Mufasa and I did too, but we could not handle any more work. Our hands wrote hundreds of tags and checked even more. Moved tens of envelopes around and pushed handfuls of pins into that wall. Our voices explained to dozens of people how to correctly write a tag. Our hearts mourned hundreds of souls whose faces we never got to see and stories never got to hear. At this point, the only thing that could bring us closure was pushing that last pin into the wall.

That afternoon, we both walked out of the library sobbing. None of us expected that this project would become so important in our lives. And yet, it became one of the key experiences that shaped us as individuals and as friends.

In an interview a couple weeks later, Sanchita told me:

The power of this exhibit is that it makes you vulnerable in ways you wouldn’t expect it to. Something as simple as writing a tag turns out to be not so simple. It evokes emotional vulnerability and it’s scary. But if you’re willing to enter into something and be vulnerable with it, it opens possibilities you wouldn’t otherwise imagine. That’s the thing with art - you don’t know what kind of reactions to expect. But it starts a conversation, a conversation you often need to learn and process things" (Balachandran 2021, private interview). 

Hostile Terrain 94 achieved something few art exhibits can: it truly moved the hearts of those who made a choice to become part of it. Just like it tells the stories of those who never got to tell them themselves, this exhibit also deserves its story to be told.

Everything began in July 1993 in El Paso, where Silvestre Reyes, Mexican American Border Patrol agent, was promoted to chief of the El Paso Sector by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). He was appointed in the critical moment of a flood of lawsuits against the Border Patrol from local Latino residents complaining about unfair racial profiling and harassment due to the consistent pursuit of "undocumented border crossers" in their neighborhoods (De León 2017, 30).

"The majority of El Paso residents who lived along the border were Latino, which made it difficult for la migra to figure out who was 'illegal' without directly interrogating people. Locals were tired of law enforcement questioning them about their citizenship while they were going about their daily business. In response to these complaints, Reyes came up with a radical new enforcement strategy that would fundamentally change how the border was policed" (De León 2017, 30).

This is how on September 19, 1993, "Operation Blockade" was born.

“The emphasis of the operation was to deter unauthorized border crossings in the core urban area between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso by making a bristling show of force. . . . This took the form of posting 400 Border Patrol agents (out of 650 total in the sector) on the banks of Rio Grande and adjacent levees in stationary, ubiquitous green and green-and-white patrol vehicles around the clock, at short-distance intervals (from fifty yards to one-half mile) along a twenty-mile stretch between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. . . . This mass posting agents created an imposing line, if not [a] virtual wall, of agents along the river, which was supplemented by low-flying and frequently deployed surveillance helicopters” (Dunn quoted in De León 2017, 30).

Now, instead of looking for the crossers after they crossed, the Border Patrol was attempting to stop the migrants at the border by this "show of force" (De León 2017, 31). This strategy satisfied the residents, but failed to stop illegal migration. It only deterred the migrants from these urban areas and led them into the hostile terrains of the desert.

The idea was simple: put heightened security around urban ports of entry and "force undocumented migrants to attempt crossings in more rural areas that were easier for law enforcement to monitor" (De León 2017, 31). Initially, the strategy gained little press, but soon the recognition grew, as the government realized it was their perfect solution. It made migration almost invisible, leading policing undocumented migration into areas with few witnesses. "Out of sight, out of mind" (De León 2017, 31). The strategy was soon implemented in other areas: Southern California ("Operation Gatekeeper," 1994), Arizona ("Operation Safeguard," 1994, 1999), and South Texas ("Operation Rio Grande," 1997), and less than a year after its first version it became a national program:

"The Border Patrol will improve control of the border by implementing a strategy of 'prevention through deterrence'" (INS Strategic Plan, quoted in De León 2017, 31).

The strategy of using natural environment to fight illegal migration was not a recent discovery, but before Prevention Through Deterrence, it was not officially laid out in any policy documents.

But how does one say that they intend to turn the environment into a mortal weapon?

The federal government doesn’t call the policy killing; they call it deterring, and justify it as the cost of guarding the homeland. The fact that this violence has been outsourced to mountains, extreme temperatures, and thousands of square miles of uninhabited terrain does not mean those fatalities should be characterized as ‘unintended consequences’ or natural events. It’s not that simple” (De León 2017, 68).

The words you use to describe something make a big difference in how this description is perceived. Therefore, people tend to be very careful with words in delicate matters. But, as we could see, it's not only about the words you can find, but also about those you cannot ("the 2012-2016 Border Patrol Strategic Plan makes no mention of this landscape or its key role in deterring migration," (De León, 2017 33)). In words of Michel-Rolph Trouillot:

"The presences and absences embodied in sources (artifacts and bodies that turn an event into fact) or archives (facts col­lected, thematized, and processed as documents and monuments) are neither neutral or natural. They are created. As such, they are not mere presences and absences, but mentions or silences of vari­ous kinds and degrees. By silence, I mean an active and transitive process: one “silences” a fact or an individual as a silencer silences a gun. One engages in the practice of silencing. Mentions and si­lences are thus active, dialectical counterparts of which history is the synthesis" (Trouillot 2015, 48).

Why do you think people try to silence certain voices? What voices in particular seem to be at the greatest danger of being silenced?

In the realization of the practice of silencing there is also another powerful realization: if we have the power to silence someone, we also have the power to give them a voice. Not only a voice - a microphone and a giant speaker.

This is what Hostile Terrain 94 became all about.

Let's take a break to ask ourselves a question: why do people cross? What is the reason someone decides to leave their country and look for a better life, a better future, on the other side of miles of hostile terrains?

A very common cause for migration seems to be economics - a positive or negative shock drawing people into or out of a country for different reasons and in different ways. An “export boom draws investment and migrants from everywhere” (Lurtz 2021, lecture 9), both within and between countries, making people follow labor into the cities and out of villages (Lurtz 2021, lecture 10). An economic crisis, like the Great Depression, on the other hand, provides an incentive to leave, but also to expel others - like in the US in the first half of twentieth century, when those of Mexican descent, regardless of citizenship, were pushed back to Mexico (Lurtz 2021, lecture 20).

What might be considered the main cause of migration waves between the US and Mexico in the last thirty years? There are many possible answers and many perspectives, which we'll explore in a moment. However, before that, take a minute to read the quote below and think. Do you notice such an approach in migration discourses you encounter? Keep that quote in mind as you proceed to explore more about the causes and effects of migration in this StoryMap.

Historians on both sides of the 'pond' (and the contributors to this issue are no exception) have normally dealt with this vast transnational phenomenon from a national perspective. . . . [This] approach, however, has many drawbacks. It focuses exclusively on the receiving country as if immigrants were tabula rasae whose history began only after they got off the boats or crossed a border. This leads to a form of hyper-environmentalism that attempts to explain everything in reference to the host environment, while disregarding the premigratory cultural background and the modes of migration, both of which greatly affected the adaptation of arrivals to their new surroundings. The host-nation-centered approach also treats migration as a one-way flow, when in reality it represents a series of movements that included permanent and temporary settlement, return, back-and-forth traveling between sending and receiving societies, and relocation from one destination to another outside the place of origin” (Moya 2006, 2-3). 

Now, let's take a look at how Jason De León attempts to explain the migrant movement around 1994:

Let's take a look at something closer to present day and a different type of source, The Washington Post article:

And here is another type of source, a piece of research with charts analyzing trends to help us connect a cause to the effect:

Although the answer to the question of why people migrate might not be straightforward and might change over time, it's important to remain mindful of the sole presence of a reason. This awareness helps us understand each other better and treat each other as people, who, just like us, have certain difficulties, possibilities, or lack thereof, hopes, dreams and feelings. The question "why," forgotten way too often, holds incredible amounts of power to connect across borders that seem to be uncrossable.

You might have noticed this name here already, as it appears rather frequently, but now it's finally time that you meet Jason De León. The excerpts you got to read above come from his award-winning book “The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail.” Prof. De León is the next chapter of Hostile Terrain's story. Or maybe, actually, the first chapter.

Below you'll find Prof. De León's website. Take a minute to explore who he is and anything about his work that you might be interested in.

Jason De León grew up largely in McAllen, Texas, near the Mexican border in the Rio Grande Valley. He began his career as a classical archaeologist interested in ancient trade and exchange in Mexico, and conducted research in various parts of that country. As he spent more and more time in Mexico, he kept getting to know the working class people and hearing a variety of crossing stories, and he discovered he became interested in these stories more than he was in what was under the ground.

Despite his upbringing in heavily affected by migration South Texas and immigrant past of his family, De León never expected himself to work with migration. But the call was too strong and he soon found himself moving across disciplines and combining his passions for archaeology, anthropology and ethnography together, looking for the remnants of migrant tracks in the sand.

He describes this work as "salvage archaeology" - trying to pick up the ephemeral evidence like fabric or plastic before nature destroys it or conservation groups pick them up as trash. It can be a true race with time, not only when it comes to things, but also the remains of people - bodies and skeletons. The experiments De León's team conducted on pigs discovered a shocking truth about the desert: all it takes for a fully fleshed body to be completely skeletonized and disarticulated, clothes and other personal things ripped and destroyed and carried far away by the wind, is 36 hours.

The desert itself, kind of by design, is erasing this evidence.” (De León 2020)

De León's eyes were opened by listening to migrant's stories. Unfortunately, he notices, these stories are usually left untold. Most exhibits dealing with illegal migration consist of some memorabilia picked up in the desert - plastic bottles, backpacks, shoes, empty cans - but, as he notes, without voices of real people, actual migrants, these things are of little value. Everybody can pick up a couple bottles in the desert and say whatever they want to about them. However, it's not that easy to work with the migrants to make their actual voices heard. “For me, it’s just laziness,” says De León, describing these voiceless exhibits of things.

" Undocumented Migration Project  is an attempt to record and highlight the experience of those, who are oftentimes in the shadows, and trying to do that in an ethical and safe way, but also empowering for the people who are involved," explains De León. For him, Undocumented Migration Project is a commitment to recording different kinds of information and “giving the people involved in these processes the power to be heard, to be able to tell their stories to the general public in a way that feels both safe and equitable.” It's a commitment to give voice to those who want to be seen or heard, but usually don't have a say in anything. It's giving them some agency.

De León believes that understanding what someone had to suffer to be here, in America, and work mowing lawns or painting walls is key to ending hate and creating respect for migrants.

But to get people to understand, we need to educate them, and we need to reach broader audiences than those that would willingly reach for a book or a documentary or go to an art gallery. We need to find a way to give everyone a chance to stop and think. We need to give them a chance to engage.

That's how Hostile Terrain 94 was born.

All the information and quotations you could read above in this chapter come from a podcast "Immigration and Democracy" hosted at Harvard University. Click on the button below to listen to the full episode.

I want them [people] to interact with the exhibit as a living thing. To look closely, spend time with things, or here - people - and just get their own takeaway, whatever it will be. My concern is people coming, taking a quick glance, saying “I know exactly what this is” and walking away without reflection. Spend time with it, notice things, have different feelings, ideas, thoughts… This is what this is all about!" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

The picture you saw at the very beginning and the one you just saw above is Hostile Terrain 94 exhibition - a participatory art exhibit carried out in about 130 places around the world. Click  here  to see the list of places or explore them on the map below.

One of the exhibits took place at Johns Hopkins University, co-organized by Sanchita Balachandran, Associate Director of the Archaeological Museum at Johns Hopkins University, and Associate Professor of Anthropology Alessandro Angelini.

Each exhibit consists of 3,205 toe tags of people who died trying to cross US-Mexico border between the mid-1990s and 2020. 2020 was the year when the exhibits were supposed to take off, but that process was delayed in many places due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

All tags are written by hand by volunteers that work on carrying out the exhibition in each place, and are later placed on the map with a pin exactly where each human remains were found. That practice creates a strangely beautiful piece of art with a morbid message: “a topography of death” (Balachandran 2021). 

The main thing about this exhibit is that it’s very tactile, touchable. People are tired of screens and phones, they want to engage with something real. There is an importance to a sensory experience, even if it’s something less special than a tag, but that particular interaction is very powerful. Even when the world gets completely dominated by screens, this sensory experience is never going to go away. That touch is still incredibly important” (Balachandran 2021, private interview). 

Spend a minute looking through the pictures below. Notice how the tags layer and go out into the space, creating a multidimensional experience. How does it make you feel?

I can't even recall if it was late September or early October. Time becomes a strange concept when you become absorbed by an idea or a task so much it dominates your days, your weeks. I just got an email a couple days before, saying:

"The JHU Archaeological Museum is making its space (Gilman 150) available daily for tag-writing sessions, Monday through Friday, from 10:30am-1:30pm. Drop in anytime to fill out tags, even if it’s just for a short while."

And I thought: "What a coincidence! I was just thinking that I need to do something meaningful this semester." I decided to accept the invitation and come to write a couple tags, just to come back one day, when the exhibit is complete, and look for my handwriting on the wall.

Oh, how wrong I was that day.

One important lesson I learned about the impact of this project is that once it captures you, it doesn't let go.

Take a few minutes to read a Johns Hopkins Hub article which includes voices of people who stayed in this exhibition from the very beginning through the very end.

Another thing that makes this project so incredibly captivating happens the moment you realize the actual scale of it. To see it for yourself, take a look at the map below:

This map shows the entire length of the US-Mexico international boundary. Zoom in around Tucson and try going a little bit back and forth between the picture of the finished exhibit in the Hub article and the map to figure out which part of the map was included in the exhibit. And then, keeping in mind the size of this piece, zoom out.

Sonoran Desert is only a piece of border full of hostile terrains stretching over almost two thousand miles. 3,205 people who died between mid-1990s and 2020 are only a fraction of those who die every year trying to cross.

While working on the exhibit, at some point, as the scale and the numbers start to hit you, you realize you are part of something much bigger than yourself or even the map that you see on the wall. You're part of an international educational endeavour that is critical to changing the existing policies. And there is only so much you can do here and now. But even if it's small, it matters.

This consciousness can become very overwhelming, as it evokes a huge sense of responsibility. That's why it's so important to make it your choice to care and to act.

I wouldn’t be in favor of forcing people to interact with something that doesn’t feel safe. It pushes them away. People don’t learn well when they don’t feel safe, that’s why it was so important to put in place ways to opt out - warning signs, giving oral warnings, emphasizing voluntary aspect and giving a signal: 'you can stop at any time.' Making participation an active choice at every point of the experience. Always building a question:'are you OK? Should you take a break?' but also trusting people when they say they are OK" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

Maybe after reading through the previous chapters you already have an idea why the question "are you ok?" is so important. If you're still unsure, let me tell you that this project can get really emotionally heavy. For example, when you find people like Pedro.

Or when you learn stories of people like Gurupreet, first through a tag, and then through the news.

There are different ways people cope with the heaviness of this experience. One outlet that was given to the participants (besides taking a break, sometimes for a while, and sometimes forever) was writing notes on the back of the tags. You could already see one written for Pedro above. Below, you'll find a collection of notes people wrote for the Johns Hopkins exhibit.

If that didn't help, people sometimes found other ways to cope. For example poetry. Below you'll find a selection of poems inspired by Hostile Terrain 94 exhibit. The author wished to remain anonymous.

By now you probably realize how difficult it is to create this exhibit, being constantly surrounded by death. But still, many people decide to stay and dedicate their time and energy to this map.

Do you recall a trigger warning I put at the very top of this StoryMap? If you're still here reading this, that means that you also made a choice to stay. An active choice you could take back at any point. Now ask yourself a question: why did you stay?

Why do we all stay? Why did I stay?

That's a question I often asked myself too, and was even prompted to answer a couple times. Below you'll find my personal thoughts: a piece I wrote to answer the question "Why did you choose to participate in the project?" for a Hopkins News-Letter article. To read more voices of Johns Hopkins faculty and students, click  here  to view the full Hopkins News-Letter article.

In order to change something, we need to care. And in order to care, we need to feel something. And what's a better way to feel than to listen to the whispers of the dead themselves?

As academics here at Hopkins, we’re supposed to be working with facts and arguments. But what about feelings? Passion, human connection, sense of justice, even love? This is what drives me. This is certainly more important to me than being right" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

How many times have you been told that feelings have no place in academics? That you have to objectively argue your point? I want to ask the same question Charles Hirschkind asked in his book "The Feeling of History: ". . . do all pasts demand the same dispassionate attitude from us? Is there a singular affective tone appropriate to the heterogenous pasts to which we find ourselves attached and by which they can be authoritatively disclosed? . . ." (Hirschkind 2021, 18). Taking feelings into account when talking about history is crucial, because they allow us to “open up dimensions of the past that defy categorization within normative analytical frameworks” (Hirschkind 2021, 99). 

How do you talk about things so deeply human and so deeply painful without feelings? Or, more importantly, how do you drive people to act and make a change if you don't make them feel something? This is the value of participatory art projects: they pull you inside and, if they are really good ones, they don't let go that easily. Creating such an impactful exhibit demands incredible amounts of planning and work.

Because of what this project was about, I wanted it to look just right. You want nothing to distract people from the story you’re trying to tell. So it was important to me to have this exhibition look professional, clean, and tightly organized. If you want maximum impact, it cannot be messy. I’ve worked in museums for 25 years and anytime I’ve seen something of this scale being pulled off, it was 50-100 people working to make something look just right in a confined museum space. As you can tell, we had much less people and a library that we had to turn into a museum space. It took a lot to get there, but we turned this small space in the corner of the library into an art gallery" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

But it's not only about the destination here. It's as much, or even more, about the process. Making people stop and feel something once the exhibit is done is one thing. But pulling over 250 people directly in and letting them "talk" to and about the dead is another.

I learned that certain themes tend to bring a broad group of people together. For example, compare distant ancient art and a project concerning something more modern, present, something that feels very human. We don’t need to be afraid to bring out very difficult topics and see how they open up conversation across departments, programs… people. The response here was truly extraordinary. So many different people were here: classes, sororities, professors, students across all majors…" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

This feeling of history connects and unites people in ways we would never expect it. Something I noticed that kept me truly fascinated for entire weeks was how it showed in our language. There are no words to describe the experience of writing tags, there is no right way to talk about this. Very often when you ask someone about their experience, you end up talking for hours, and a piece of dialogue that often recurs in these conversations sounds like this:

-- It felt really [blank]... but that's not the right word.

-- I know exactly what you mean.

We came to share a really difficult experience and, in some way, it connected us on a deeper level. On a level of understanding where words we normally use are no longer adequate, but this shared experience allows us to understand each other beyond the right words. Those of us who felt an emotional connection with this topic can be said to have experienced grief. What is interesting about grief though, is that it's usually a very lonely experience. You suffer alone. But not in this case. This was the type of grief that doesn't feel lonely. A type of grief that unites. And, after all, empowers to take action.

Projects like this make you vulnerable and that’s scary, but when they come from a loving and caring place, it just feels like it was something you were meant to do" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

There is only so much I can tell you. So much I can explain. But it's not about telling you everything. It's about making you feel something. About planting the seed.

I don't have a particular key message I want you to take away from this. I showed you many different things: facts, emotions, perspectives. Choose what speaks to you the most and reflect on it. Ask yourself: how does this make me feel? Why does it make me feel this way? What can I do about it? What do I want to do about it?

And if there is one piece of advice I want you to remember, it is: take the opportunity you're given. Give tough learning a chance, even if it's only for a brief moment. You never know where it can lead you, to what kind of people, conversations, discoveries. You never leave these experiences the way you found them.

Even though the exhibition is complete and there are no more hands writing and hanging tags on the main wall, this exhibit is and will not be done for a long time. There is still a dedication wall for tags of people found in 2021 and notes people leave for them. And also, as Sanchita told me, "this project spun off in so many new, unexpected ways and we don’t know about all of them. It’s gonna be messily unfinished for a long time" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

I want to leave you here with a song and a quote - a feeling and a thought.

A song that I listened to while writing this, a song my colleague and friend Mufasa played me the first time I wrote a tag. A song I did not understand at first with my poor Spanish, seemingly cheerful, yet after all - so sad. Listen to it and then just put the lyrics into Google Translate. Although imperfect, the translation is enough for you to understand the story of José Pérez León. I hope the song leaves you with a feeling.

And a quote that comes from the conversation I had with Sanchita Balachandran, a behind-the-scenes hero of this exhibit. I hope this one leaves you with a thought.

When you cross the quad, making your way towards the library, and look through the window, you’re being taken aback by the power of these small tags hanging from a grey wall. It’s going to be sad when it’s no longer there. But people need to rest - we’ve thought of them, but perhaps we need to let them go. Best projects that I worked on are those that linger for far longer than they were intended for, usually inside of people - I hope it’s the case for more projects and more people" (Balachandran 2021, private interview).

This is what it's all about. The exhibit, the StoryMap, the poems, the pictures, the books, articles and conversations. A feeling and a thought. Because a feeling and a thought is usually what brings the spark to people's hearts - the spark that carries change.

As you continue learning, many thoughts and feelings come and go, and often ignite in you a spark to learn more, to change and create. They are sometimes very strong and difficult to carry, but also beautiful and inspiring.

Just like the back of the cards and the dedication wall provided an outlet for participants of the physical exhibition, now, as you became part of it too, you also have a space to share your thoughts.

The button below will take you to our very own dedication wall, where I invite you to write a thought on the manila tags, a feeling on the yellow ones, and a commitment you want to make on the orange ones. A thought and a feeling sound easy, but what do I mean by a commitment? A commitment might be anything from deciding to listen to a story of an undocumented migrant you know, reaching for Jason De León's "The Land of Open Graves," deciding to follow the news about migration for a month, donating to an immigrant organization, or volunteering for it. Anything you're willing to do to take action.

Educating yourself to become conscious of the issues around you and empathetic with others is probably the most important gift you can give and the biggest change you can make now. Everything starts at the level of "I." But if you feel like it's not enough, consider supporting CASA, the largest grassroots immigrant advocacy organization in the Mid-Atlantic region. And if you live in Baltimore, you might see the Hostile Terrain 94 exhibition in CASA soon.

I'd like to thank Sanchita Balachandran, Mufasa Cruz Moreno, Alessandro Angelini, and Kate Gallagher for giving their whole hearts and dedicating so much of their time to this project. Thank you for contributing your work and thoughts to this StoryMap, and for taking care of me throughout these emotionally difficult weeks of working on the exhibit. I'm forever grateful for you.

I'd like to thank Jason De León for coming up with this idea and becoming an inspiration for me, with this StoryMap and beyond.

I'd also like to thank every single volunteer who came into Hopkins Archaeological Museum and wrote at least one tag, and everyone involved into the design and setup of the exhibit. I might not know all your names, but you will not be forgotten.

“About.” Jason De León. Accessed December 2021. https://www.jasonpatrickdeleon.com/about. 

ArcGIS. “ United States - Mexico International Boundary.” Map. ArcGIS. Accessed December 2021. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?layers=d5e53a1068b049f69f4fb81e018d52b2. 

Balachandran, Sanchita, and Alessandro Angelini. Hostile Terrain 94 Exhibition Needs Your Participation, Email sent to Johns Hopkins community, October 6, 2021. 

Balachandran, Sanchita, and Natalia Stefanska. Private Interview. Personal, December 8, 2021. 

Chen, Angela. “Hostile Terrain 94 Delivers Harsh Critique of America's Immigration Policies.” The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. Johns Hopkins University, December 7, 2021. https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2021/12/hostile-terrain-94-delivers-harsh-critique-of-americas-immigration-policies?fbclid=IwAR3qdcO_ul-RYl9UxlwGpOqzpXqcR3sKFhozSE7K7bx10TWpRVGOafTC6LI. 

De León, Jason, and Michael Wells. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017. 

Dr Allsopp, Jennifer, Jason De León, and Xiren Wang. “Immigration and Democracy. S1. Ep3. Hostile Terrain: Missing on the Migrant Trail.” SoundCloud. Immigration Initiative at Harvard, 2020. https://soundcloud.com/immigrationanddemocracy/immigrationanddemocracy-ep-themigranttrail. 

Gramlich, John, and Alissa Scheller. “What's Happening at the U.S.-Mexico Border in 7 Charts.” Pew Research Center, November 9, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/09/whats-happening-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-in-7-charts/. 

Hirschkind, Charles. The Feeling of History: Islam, Romanticism, and Andalusia. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2021. 

“Hostile Terrain 94.” Exhibition. Johns Hopkins University, 2021. 

“Hosting Partners.” Undocumented Migration Project. Accessed December 2021. https://www.undocumentedmigrationproject.org/hosts. 

Los Tigres Del Norte. José Pérez León. YouTube, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghBeXvbSJqQ.

Kirk, Will. Johns Hopkins Hostile Terrain 94 Exhibit Photographs. n.d. 

Lurtz, Casey M. “Lecture 9: Export Boom.” Modern Latin America Fall 2021 Class. Lecture. 

Lurtz, Casey M. “Lecture 10: Migration.” Modern Latin America Fall 2021 Class. Lecture. 

Lurtz, Casey M. “Lecture 20: Migration.” Modern Latin America Fall 2021 Class. Lecture.

Moya, José C. “A Continent of Immigrants: Postcolonial Shifts in the Western Hemisphere.” Hispanic American Historical Review 86, no. 1 (2006): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-86-1-1. 

Pokharel, Sugam, and Catherine E. E. Shoichet. “This 6-Year-Old from India Died in the Arizona Desert. She Loved Dancing and Dreamed of Meeting Her Dad.” CNN. Cable News Network, July 13, 2019. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/12/asia/us-border-death-indian-girl-family/index.html. 

Sheridan, Mary Beth, Anna-Catherine Brigida, Gabriela Martinez, and Kevin Sieff. “What's Causing the Migrant Surge at the U.S. Border? Poverty, Violence and New Hope under Biden.” The Washington Post, March 18, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/migrant-surge-border-biden-unaccompanied-minors/2021/03/18/c2a48ab0-87ed-11eb-82bc-e58213caa38e_story.html. 

Stimpson, Ashley. “Art Installation Memorializes the Thousands of Lives Lost at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” The Hub. Johns Hopkins University, November 15, 2021. https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/11/15/hostile-terrain-migrant-exhibit/. 

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “The Three Faces of Sans Souci.” Chapter in Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, 31–69. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2015. 

Wells, Michael. A Photo of Sonoran Desert. March 24, 2012. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2012/03/24/149171195/living-breathing-archeology-in-the-arizona-desert?t=1639951682918.