JE #5

After watching the video, “Bodies on the Border,” it was quite heartbreaking as I fully became conscious of the struggle of the thousands who come cross the border. Yes, we’ve seen other films in class but none of them really showed the truth behind what happens to those thousands of people who cross, some successful and, well, others who weren’t fortunate. This video, as well as the discussion we had in class, allowed me to piece together how the video and The Flower in the Skullare relevant to one another. Both examples demonstrate the hardships endured for those who come crossing the border.

Kathleen Alcala, author of The Flower in the Skull, shows Concha’s life in Northern Mexico during the mid-nineteenth century. Concha, who is of Opata heritage, struggles with the racism the Mexican government and society has placed on her people, as well as struggling with terrorism inflicted by the Apache tribe. There comes a time in Concha’s life where, along with her family, she treks through the Sonora Desert, only to come to a crossroad where her mother, Chiri, sends Concha and her sisters with El Gusano, a gentleman from her town. Eventually, Concha is left for dead in the desert as she was abandoned, left to find her own way in life. “Then he looked at me and rode away. I waited a while, but they did not come back. I began to walk” (Alcala 40). Though devastated by all the mishaps in her life, Concha continues forward, bearing a child and seeing her married off. The difference here between Concha and the video, “Bodies on the Border,” is that Concha lives through the journey north and is able to share her adventure. El Gusano, on the otherhand, does not survive; his body left to dry in the desert sun.

Though Concha survived the desert, like the video exemplifies, thousands, just like El Gusano, do not make it through the desert and, unfortunately, are often left unidentified; only the items in their pockets tell their tale. It’s devastating to know how many bodies are left in the desert; names and histories lost in the desert wind. Seeing the items left behind by the bodies in the desert tells a tale of one’s life. Some are easier to understand while others are much more difficult to piece back together. It saddens me that hundreds of family members, on both sides of the border never know what has become of their loved ones, only assuming the worse when they haven’t heard back from their relative or friend. According to the article, “the number of migrant deaths has remained high (the remains of at least 116 people have been found this year in Arizona), and a greater proportion is likely dying” (Silver). Just like the title of the journal entry, it’s showing how borderland history is in fact repeating itself. Though they are both different stories, the struggles are the same. The question now is how can there be zero deaths for border crossers in this Sonora Desert, no-man’s land?