I was a tutor, before I retired, in a university where many of my students were undocumented. They were brought here by their parents, mostly as babies, and through no fault of their own. They were at the University to get a degree, despite the reality that they could have much trouble getting decent-paying jobs upon graduation.
I was born in Kansas City Missouri, through no effort of my own, in a land that kicked out its previous occupants through violence. I understand that where I live, was previously Mexican land. The United States wanted this land to add to their "possessions," and when Mexico didn't want to give it to them, they took it by force. To me, this does not make it United States' land.
I have friends that are undocumented, and it's heartbreaking to see the troubled existence that they endure. But reading this book brought it more to life than ever, because most of the people I know, came before the "Prevention Through Deterrence" program, where they force people to travel on foot through the deadly Sonoran desert.
"Countless citizens today suffer historical amnesia and draw Stark divisions between the 'Noble' European immigrants of the past and Latino border crossers of today. How quickly they forget about the violent welcome receptions that America threw for the irish, Chinese, and many other newly arrived immigrant groups. The benefit of the chronological distance from the pain and suffering of past migrations is that many Americans today have no problem putting nationality before humanity."

The cruel comments that Americans can make about undocumented migrants dying in the desert, remind me of the cruel comments that my neighbors on nextdoor.com make about unhoused humans. They forget that the reason there are so many unhoused humans is because the rich have planned it that way. And the rich planned this "divide and conquer," knowing the ignorance and cognitive dissonance of humans.

The author, in trying to describe the circumstances that cause a migrant to want to travel north, despite knowing of all the death and hardship that occur in traveling through a deadly desert, and the border policy that deters them, and the hostile landscape that the migrant travels through, uses an example of the hamburger, to describe how "agency is constructed."
"... Try charting out the actants and experiences of those responsible for the hamburger you ordered for lunch yesterday. [Not me; I'm vegan.] Does your chart include the prospective of the cow? What did the view from the cattle pen look, feel, and smell like? Did you imagine the person charged with delivering the captive bolt shot to the cow's head? Was the shot 'successful,' or did the animal writhe in pain high above the kill floor until someone wrangled her still and shot her again? What about the person responsible for the bolt gun's maintenance, or the woman who drove the truck that delivered the hamburger bun to the restaurant? Does your chart account for the chemical reaction occurring between the delivery vehicle's engine and the refined oil that was brought in from the Middle East? What about the food that the cow was fed prior to her death or the temperature in the room of the factory where her body was rendered? Did you visualize the undocumented Guatemalan teenager who grilled the Patty in the kitchen, or the E. coli that, you hope, was destroyed by cooking the meat at the proper temperature?..."

Two migrants who worked sometimes at a shelter for immigrants who had been deported back to Nogales, Sonora, nicknamed Memo and Lucho, were interviewed by the author after they had set out for Tucson, and been caught by border patrol and deported back to Nogales. One part impressed me during the interview:
"it is obvious that Lucho doesn't feel well or like talking. He stands up and excuses himself. He enters the men's dormitory and crumples onto a bottom bunk bed. I can see him through the long hallway. He is lying there, staring up at The cot above his head in silence. Memo then says:
'it is hard for him. When they deported us back to Tucson, we drove past Lucho's house. We were on the bus and he said, "check it out! That's where I live." He pointed out his house [a mobile home that was owned by his wife] and then started getting really sad. I felt horrible. I said, "Lucho, don't worry. God is protecting us. We're going to be fine. Nothing is going to happen. This is only a setback. Don't worry. We will be back." He asked me, "Memo, do you really believe that?" I said, "of course! We'll be back." I tried to cheer him up.' "

"....In 2011, the popular magazine 'Archeology' published one of the first international articles about the Undocumented Migration Project, and a piece called 'The journey to El Norte.' Several angry readers subsequently wrote letters to the editor complaining about the story, including the following:
'I am appalled that you could even consider publishing an article like The journey to El Norte. It casts a romantic light on illegal immigration. To compare these criminals to the millions of Europeans who immigrated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is an insult to their memories and efforts to give their children better lives. My grandparents came to this country legally. They wanted no handouts, learned English, and eventually owned their own company. To document the trash heaps of these current illegal immigrants as artifacts, as if they are sacred, is beyond credibility.'
... The hypocrisy of this reader's letter is easily illuminated by taking a quick historical glance back at how new European arrivals to the United States were viewed in the late 19th and early 20th century. 150 years ago [this book was published in 2015], Matthew Hale Smith published a book about the children of Five Points, New York, then an infamously poor neighborhood heavily populated by new arrivals from Europe. Hale lamented the societal input of the children of first generation immigrants: 'their parents are foreigners. They are too dirty, too ragged, and carry too much vermin about them to be admitted to public schools. Their homes are in the dens and stews of the city, where the thieves, vagabonds, gamblers and murderers dwell. With the early light of morning they are driven from their vile homes to pick rags and cinders, collect bones, and steal... They are familiar with every form of wickedness and crime. As they grow up they swell the ranks of the dangerous classes. Our thieves, burglars, robbers, rioters, who are the most notorious, are young persons of foreign parentage.' "
By the way, my ancestors came from Ireland during the potato famine.

In one part of this book, the author has included a picture of a dead immigrant, face down on The desert floor. The author, along with student volunteers, combing the desert for artifacts left by migrants, came across the remains of this poor soul on their outing. The author accedes the horror that some readers may experience on encountering this photo, and acknowledges that some may protest the inclusion of it.
"These photos thus made visible the human impact of the United States border enforcement policy intended to kill people, and they provide compelling evidence that we need not go to 'exotic' places to get 'full frontal views of the dead and dying.' the Dead live in our backyard; they are the human grist for the sovereignty machine. You need only 'luck' to catch a glimpse of the dead before they are erased by the hybrid collectif.
Desert border crossings are cruel, brutal affairs in which people often die slowly and painfully from hypothermia, dehydration, heatstroke, and a variety of other related ailments. To paint these deaths in any other way is both a denial of the harsh desert reality and a disservice to those who have experienced it."

The author is an empathetic intellectual who grasps the big picture of the Imperial powers' deadly successful efforts at enforcement of an invisible border and its policies to keep out the humans who have been dealt a bad hand in the birth lottery.



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De Leon's research into the migrant experience of crossing the desert in hopes of finding work to support their families is heartbreaking. The United States is complicit is so many of the economic policies that have harmed the economies south of the border and caused the mass migrations that we see today. Government response to the migrations was to implement border strategy Prevention Through Deterrence (PTD) which has resulted in so many precious lives being lost in the desert. De Leon shows us the human suffering of desert crossing.

A suggested companion piece to "The Land of Open Graves" is the Radiolab podcast "Border Trilogy." https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/projects/border-trilogy ( )