JE#5: How Borderlands History Repeats Itself

According to “Bodies on the Border” by Marc Silver “economic disparity, political instability and harsh immigration policies are a combustible mix- one that plays out tragically along national borders” (1) because one of these conditions or all of these conditions force Concha and the Mexican or Central American migrants to walk the Arizona desert. They all share the experience of being “no longer human or part of a village, but just another part of the desert” (Alcalá, 42) because they are displaced from their homelands in a desert that can swallow up their lives. Since 2001, 2,200 remains of migrants have been recovered in the Arizona desert near the U.S.-Mexico border. They have been swallowed up the desert on their way to survival in the U.S. that is more “economically and politically stable”. Luckily for Concha she survived the desert but she might as well be dead like the migrants because her identity, culture, and memories are stripped off like the flesh on the bones of all the dead migrants. Her essence became “just another part of the desert” (Alcalá, 42) because she is carrying the dead corpse of her village. Immigration policies, NAFTA, Schools of America, and the war on drugs violated these migrants. The tension among the Spanish, the Mexican government, and the Apache have violated the Opata village. Concha and these migrants have been violated to the point of destruction so they must survive by any means necessary and if it means walking a desert to survive then so be it. Thus, these migrants and Concha are connected by a need to survive somewhere away from home and being dead before they reach stability.