During our trip along the western portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, it became clear that neoliberal development schemes fundamentally necessitate the social construction of invisible, or forgotten, communities. In her article “Climate Justice,” Ashley Dawson uses Hurricane Katrina as a lens into “the structural nature of invisibility”. She explains Rob Nixon’s concept of “unimagined communities,” which describes “populations who find no place in neoliberalism but whose existence is nevertheless an integral part of it.” The very existence of development in its current form depends on an ignorance about and normalization of its ugly consequences––whether that be potter’s graves, mass fish die-offs in the Salton Sea, or the struggle for basic survival of the Cucapá community in El Mayor. These are the harsh realities that we are not meant to see; and if we do see them, we are taught to believe that such consequences are the “natural” sacrifices our society must make, and with sacrifice comes benefits. But with every stop on our travel seminar, we witnessed “unimagined communities” that people benefitting from the current globalized, neoliberalized world would prefer were kept hidden. Invisibility is constructed in many ways, some of which include: enclosing the commons/displacement of peoples and ecosystems; pollution; conservation efforts; and the loss of traditional knowledge over time, through migration as well as acts of cultural imperialism and genocide.
As I celebrated Día de los Muertos about a week ago, I couldn’t help but think about the third day of our travel seminar, when we visited a potter’s grave. I remember pulling up to a grassy cemetery in Holtville, California, sprinklers on to keep the grass growing green. We walked to the far side of the cemetery where we stepped over a chain, separating the “official” cemetery from the sinking ground behind it. There, we found rows and rows of potter’s graves, single bricks marked Jane and John Doe. This potter’s grave is the burial ground for unidentified migrants who died crossing the desert. Killed directly by “the funnel affect” of U.S. immigration policy, these individuals are then buried far out of the public eye, with only a disintegrating brick to mark their lives and their deaths. The potter’s grave is a micro-example of the large-scale, structural displacement of peoples due to socio-economic foreign policy, and the government’s successful attempt at hiding the ugly costs of their violent legislation.
The costs of displacement are not easy to witness. The potter’s grave was in despicable condition. We were told to walk along the outskirts of the potter’s grave, as to avoid the graves sinking in beneath our feet. Handmade crosses lay broken and fallen down throughout the makeshift cemetery: a past attempt by people at bringing some small semblance of dignity to those forgotten and forgotten again. The John and Jane Does buried in Holtville are hidden people¬¬. Many of them were crossing the desert to become hidden workers in the U.S. In the process, they died in the harsh and hidden desert, and today are buried in a hidden cemetery. There is no room for dignity in neoliberal development, and thus, it is imperative that we remember not to forget. We must remember not forget the migrants buried in Holtville, the migrants working everyday in hidden jobs throughout the U.S., and the undocumented people being locked up and hidden away in detention centers and prisons every single day.
Joseph Nevins has a Border Wars blog post called “Holtville, California on the Day of the Dead,” in which he explains that each year on Día de los Muertos, people gather at the potter’s field to remember those who have died in the desert, at the hands of U.S. immigration policy. This is a powerful image, and perhaps more of us should spend our days actively remembering those who are actively forgotten, or “unimagined.”
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