Crosses honor memory of ancestors

  PATIL ARMENIAN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Crosses put up by
the student group Conciencia Libre stand scattered across the grass
in front Meyerhoff Park.

By Melody Wang
Daily Bruin Reporter

On Tuesday, the eve of the Day of the Dead, students put up
white crosses throughout campus in memory of those who died
crossing the San Diego border.

Conciencia Libre, a student social justice organization
concerned with Latin American issues, planted the crosses as part
of Dia de Los Muertos.

“This is an event we’re doing to commemorate the Day
of the Dead and to commemorate all of our ancestors who have
passed,” said Hector Perla, a second-year political science
graduate student and member of the group.

The crosses will remain in place until Thursday, when members of
Conciencia will host a closing ceremony in Fowler Museum with skits
and speakers.

Each cross bears the name of one of the 600 people who have died
in the last two years while trying to cross the U.S.’
southern border.

According to Tonantzin Esparza, a third-year theater student,
150 of the names are listed as “unknown,” because the
bodies were never identified.

“These are just the bodies that are found, not the ones
that are never found and their families have no idea what’s
happened to them,” Esparza said.

Conciencia members said because legal U.S. immigration can be
too long and complicated a process for suffering Latin Americans,
many are forced to immigrate illegally.

“Who has that kind of time when 70 million people are
living on less than five U.S. dollars a day and the number one
cause of children’s deaths is diarrhea?” said Alfonso
Gonzales, a fourth-year international development studies
student.

In 1994, the U.S. implemented Operation Gatekeeper, which
increased security of the border 116 yards out into the Pacific
Ocean.

Since then, 600 times more people have died crossing the border
and the number of Latin Americans attempting to enter the U.S. has
decreased by 1 percent, according to Conciencia members.

The increased border control forced people to brace harsh
conditions to enter the U.S., Gonzales said.

“If you go to the west, you have to cross the ocean and
you would drown. If you go the east, you hit the desert and
mountains and people die there of hypothermia, dehydration and heat
stroke,” he said.

Despite Operation Gatekeeper, migrant workers continue to cross
the border at the same rate because harsh conditions in Latin
America make escaping a necessity, said Marlene Urrea, a third-year
English student.

“It’s not a matter of people want-ing to come to the
United States,” she said. “It’s because they have
no choice.”

Rather than increasing security, Perla said the U.S. needs to
address the root of the immigration problem, which is its foreign
economic policy.

While investing factories and financial capital in Latin
America, the U.S. takes the fruits of labor back home and strips
Latin Americans of any benefits, he said.

“There’s not too much difference between Gore and
Bush stances on Latin America. They look at us as an investment and
a source of cheap labor,” Perla said. “But at the same
time, they’re counting on the Latin American vote.”