Archaeology and Migrants

Migrant pea pickers camp in the rain. California.
(Dorothea Lange 1936, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Colleen Morgan, on her blog Middle Savagery, had an interesting post about material abandoned by illegal immigrants along the US-Mexico border ("Borderlands Archaeology"). It was sparked by a Fox News story on the (*ahem*) "millions" of dollars the cleanup is costing. The story closes with a quote by the head of the Minute Men "Truly, it's a national disaster of our cherished outdoor areas."

Hmm...

Lying assholes.

Where was I? Oh, right, archaeology. Colleen Morgan makes the point that these deposits could be studied archaeologically to see what people left behind when push came to shove. The Fox article quotes a BLM staffer "Blankets, airline tickets, Bibles, wedding pictures, photos of children, school reports, because clearly people don't tend to throw away everything they've brought with them — they're forced to." It's rather sad--alot of small tragedies.

Some archaeologists have been trying to work on archaeological approaches to migrant and transient labor, which has a long history in the West. It's not easy. Few personal possessions, very little appearance in the documentary record (migrant labor is often undocumented labor), and hidden, out-of-the-way, sites. "Giving voice to the people without history" (or some other such phrasing) is often a standard justification for historical archaeology, but seems to be true as long as those people had enough "stuff" to study. Looking at transient assemblages from the point of view of what is NOT there may be a good way to go. The modern borderlands assemblages may give some indication of what people had, and wanted to bring, but ultimately could not.

Conversely small personal items found on migrant labor sites beyond the border would acquire that much more weight since they were retained under difficult or even desperate circumstances. For example David Parkin (1999) discussed the objects refugees take with them. There are the practical objects; then there are the ones that in some sense signify and carry memories of social relations ("mementoes") that might serve to reconstitute a somewhat familiar sense of identity in a foreign place.

As an archaeologist, I've always loved the passage from The Grapes of Wrath when the Joads are choosing what goes to California and what is burnt. It is too big to ever quote in a paper or article, so I'll do it here.

When everything that could be sold was sold, stoves and bedsteads, chairs and tables, little corner cupboards, tubs and tanks, still there were piles of possessions; and the women sat among them, turning them over and looking of beyond and back, pictures, square glasses, and here's a vase.

Now you know well what we can take and what we can't take. We'll be camping out--a few pots to cook and wash in, and mattresses and comforts, lantern and buckets, and a piece of canvas. Use that for a tent. This kerosene can. Know what that is? That's the stove. And clothes--take all the clothes. And--the rifle? Wouldn't go out naked of a rifle. When the shoes and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, we'll have the rifle. Nothing else. That goes. And a bottle for water. That just about fills us. Right up the sides of the trailer, and the kids can set in the trailer, and granma on a mattress. Tools, a shovel and saw and wrench and pliers. An ax, too. We had that ax forty years. Look how she's wore down. And ropes, of course. Leave it--or burn it up.

And the children came.

If Mary takes that doll, that dirty rag doll, I got to take my Injun bow. I got to. An ' this roun' stick--big as me. I might need this stick. I had this stick so long--a month, or maybe a year. I got to take it. And what's it like in California?

The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back. This book. My father had it. He liked a book. Pilgrim's Progress. Used to read it. Got his name in it. and his pipe--still smells rank. And this picture--an angel. I looked at that before the fust three come--didn't seem to do much good. Think we could get this china dog in? Aunt Sadie brought it from the St. Louis Fair. See? Wrote right on it. No, I guess not. Here's a letter my brother wrote the day before he died. Here's an old-time hat. These feathers--never got to use them. No, there isn't room.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.
(Steinbeck 1939:88)

Parkin, David J.
1999 “Mementoes as Transitional Objects in Human Displacement.” Journal of Material Culture 4.3: 303-320.

Steinbeck, John
1939 The Grapes of Wrath. New York, NY: Penguin Books, (rep. 2002) .