2023-2024 CHAT The Land of Open Graves: Raising Awareness about Migrant Life and Death along the US/Mexico Border

Please join us for the Center for the Humanities at Temple (CHAT), 1st Annual Keynote Address with speaker Jason De León. Dr. De León is a Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American Studies (University of California, Los Angeles) and Executive Director of The Undocumented Migration Project and The Colibri Center for Human Rights. He will be dicussing The Land of Open Graves: Raising Awareness about Migrant Life and Death along the US/Mexico Border.

Since the mid-1990s’, the U.S. federal government has relied on a border enforcement strategy known as “Prevention Through Deterrence.” Using various security infrastructure and techniques of surveillance, this strategy funnels undocumented migrants towards remote and rugged terrain such as the Sonoran Desert of Arizona with the hope that mountains ranges, extreme temperatures, and other “natural” obstacles will deter people from unauthorized entry. Since the 1990's, thousands of people have died as a result of this policy. In this talk I discuss the politics of migrant death in Arizona, describe our ongoing global exhibition Hostile Terrain 94 (HT94) that seeks to raise awareness about this issue, and highlight the new collaboration between the Undocumented Migration Project and the Colibrí Center for Human Rights.