Reflections on a Summer in the Sonoran Desert

It was already late afternoon, but the sun beat down no less intensely on the stretch of dirt road where I sat, about nine miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border in the Sonoran desert. There was no shade in sight, the largest objects around inhospitable mesquite and cactus. This day I was sitting cross-legged with a middle-aged man from Chiapas named Martín. Martín had crossed the border two days before and had been walking almost nonstop ever since. He had awakened the night before to find that his guía, along with the rest of the group that he was walking with, were gone. This is not an uncommon occurrence; those who are too slow due to age, lack of physical fitness, or injury are frequently left behind. Miles from anything and without knowledge of the harsh geographical terrain, the probability of not making it through is much too high. While the resourcefulness of those who are making this crossing should not be discounted, the number of bodies recovered along the border since the mid-1990s averages around one each day. These are, of course, only the bodies that are found; given the remoteness and inaccessibility of the region, it is certainly accurate to assume that many more are never discovered.
Unlike most of the people I meet in this area, Martín still had some food and clean water with him. Also unlike many, he had not drunk from the small watering holes that are virtually the only source of water in the region. Contaminated by the cattle that roam freely in this part of the country, consumption of this water causes many to become desperately sick in a short period of time. While fortunate in that his physical state was good, apart from total exhaustion after two days of walking in extreme temperatures, he was not fortunate in that he was still at least two more days walk from the closest reasonable destination, the interstate. With no other real options available to him, Martín asked for Border Patrol to be called, so that he could be returned to México.
As we sat by the side of the road waiting for the truck to arrive, we shared water, some fruit, and our stories. Martín’s was similar to countless others I have listened to in the desert. He had two small children back home. Times were so difficult in México with la crisis, it was harder than ever to make ends meet. The prices of basic staples – beans, tortillas – kept going up, not just once or twice, but over and over. Also his mom, who was living in California, was pretty sick and he didn’t think she would be able to hold on for much longer. She had diabetes and was going downhill quickly. Or that’s what they told him, he hadn’t seen her in a long while. He just wanted to be with her, and to be able to make some money to send home to his wife and kids. That was pretty much it. My story was pretty straightforward, as well. I happened to end up on the same dirt road as Martín that day because I work with a group called No Más Muertes or No More Deaths, whose mission is to end death and suffering through the provision of humanitarian aid in the desert along the U.S.-Mexico border. We had just finished leaving over a hundred gallons of water at various places along well-traveled migrant trails in the area. Martín said that we did good and much-needed work, and he was very grateful to have encountered us. We heard the crunch of gravel on the road in the distance and we started to say our goodbyes. The truck pulled up and an armed and uniformed agent loaded Martín into the back and without wasting any time, turned and drove back out the road.
Juan Villoro says that the border is “an enormous repository of stories.” When I reflect on my time in the Sonoran desert along the U.S.-Mexico border, a thousand stories, along with the faces that correspond with those stories, course through my thoughts. I think back to the hours I spent in seminars in Washington, DC, writing endless papers, reading even more endless stacks of books and articles. I try to integrate those faces with the hours I spent reading, writing, and talking about concepts and ideas… dependency theory, sustainable development, immigration policy, neoliberalism. Cruz, Elizabet, Felipe, Ángel, Daniel, Shirley, Aurora, Cynthia, Vanessa, Francisco, Jorge, Lucy, Estela… I ask myself if anything that I learned in two years of graduate school helps me to understand this situation in a more profound way or to do this work more effectively. I still struggle with this question.