Symbols of humanity
July 5, 2018 9:22 AM   Subscribe

For more than a decade, Mr. Kiefer worked as a janitor at the Customs and Border Protection center in Why, Ariz., before leaving in 2014. There, he collected tens of thousands of items that were confiscated and thrown in the trash by Border Patrol agents from undocumented migrants crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. He began photographing the items in 2007. “I couldn’t leave them,” he said.
posted by standardasparagus (15 comments total) 28 users marked this as a favorite
 
Eerily reminiscent of the belongings confiscated from Jews arriving at Auschwitz.
posted by klanawa at 9:34 AM on July 5, 2018 [8 favorites]


All borders represent a denial of humanity, and these are ridiculously heartbreaking symbols of the fundamental cruelty of insisting that a person's rights are limited, conditional and revokable, while those of capital are universal and unquestionable. If we one day reach a state approximating decent civilisation, we will look back on national borders with the same puzzled contempt with which people today regard feudal serfdom. These pictures aren't just good art and good journalism, they're an important historical record of the brutality of our age. I have hope that we will make it to the point where they are nothing more than a tragic memento of these times.
posted by howfar at 9:42 AM on July 5, 2018 [17 favorites]


Throwing a kid's toy in the garbage. A toy they'd probably carried over hundreds of miles, through the scariest and most exciting trip of their life.

How do you throw a kid's toy in the garbage?
posted by clawsoon at 9:52 AM on July 5, 2018 [35 favorites]


When your conditioning and colleagues constantly reinforce that you're not dealing with kids, clawsoon
posted by scruss at 10:22 AM on July 5, 2018 [8 favorites]


This is like the stretch goal, supersized version of the airport security screening, where they take away the shampoo and toothpaste because it might be explosive but then toss it all in a big open container because obviously it is not explosive. Some of the sentimental items get to me (the kids’ toys, as clawsoon mentions) but wallets with ID just infuriates me. People’s lives – in the new country or the old, if sent back – are hanging by a thread and random functionaries can just toss away the official existence of these people? I have lost my wallet twice in my life, with serious headaches to replace what I lost. And I was in my own country, with support from family and friends nearby, and easily able to negotiate the bureaucracy in my own first language. I can scarcely imagine the difficulties involved if even one of these toggles were flipped, let alone all of them.

Note: I notice Kiefer doesn’t mention finding any money in the wallets. I wonder where it all could have gone? It is a mystery.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:26 AM on July 5, 2018 [18 favorites]


How do you throw a kid's toy in the garbage?

The kids just go into the other pile.
posted by Green-eyed grenade at 11:03 AM on July 5, 2018 [5 favorites]


Both literal AND figurative examples of 'no glove, no love'.
posted by davelog at 11:25 AM on July 5, 2018


Previously
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 12:01 PM on July 5, 2018 [1 favorite]


How do you throw a kid's toy in the garbage?
posted by clawsoon at 11:52 AM on July 5


I had a minor breakdown when they showed some toys taken from kids in a school setting, this is just foul.
posted by Sphinx at 1:17 PM on July 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


These aren’t symbols of humanity, they’re proof of inhumanity.
posted by chavenet at 1:19 PM on July 5, 2018


"Why, Arizona" seems like a bad joke from a failed satirical play. Makes me feel sick.
posted by howfar at 3:27 PM on July 5, 2018


Particularly galling was the fact that the CPB accused him of stealing these articles when they were putting them in the trash. I mean, it's garbage until you decide to make a political statement out of it.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 4:43 PM on July 5, 2018 [6 favorites]


For some reason I felt the impulse to say this:

.

For the death of our collective humanity, I guess? This is heartbreaking.
posted by limeonaire at 9:19 PM on July 5, 2018 [2 favorites]


god damn the people who are responsible for this. bloody heartbreaking.
posted by james33 at 5:54 AM on July 6, 2018 [1 favorite]


If these were white migrants, American students in middle school history classes would be turning in permission slips to learn about these tragedies. But instead, they will remain invisible like the Japanese Americans sent to internment camps.
posted by Become A Silhouette at 9:08 PM on July 6, 2018


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