Water Bottle Found in Sonoran Desert
notes: label: Description
content: A plastic gallon water bottle with blue cap and burlap cover. The burlap is tied at the bottom. This bottle was collected in a remote part of the Sonoran Desert near the Mexican border. The past 20 years has seen a rise in unauthorized border crossing, border enforcement procedures, and debates about who and how migrants should be let into the country.
label: Description
content: As the US federal immigration enforcement strategy known as Prevention Through Deterrence (PTD) increased the security presence around urban ports of entry in the mid-1990s, there was a shift in undocumented migration towards more remote regions of the American Southwest. Those making the perilous journey through this inhospitable desert landscape faced extreme temperatures (summer temperatures as high as 100° F/38° C and winter temperatures approaching freezing), rugged terrain, abuse from <i>coyotes</i> (human smugglers), and the risk of getting caught by the Border Patrol.
label: Description
content: The site where this was found likely served as a way station used by human smugglers or a site of Border Patrol apprehension. Typical items found at these sites include personal hygiene products such as combs, backpacks, excess clothes, and empty water bottles. In preparation for the journey across the desert, migrants packed items necessary for survival, including plastic water bottles like this one to hold drinking water. Migrants often modified these bottles with cloth/fabric covers to make carrying them easier or to camouflage them to prevent detection by the authorities. Migrants often carried no more than two gallons of water and many reported extreme dehydration and hyperthermia as a result of the lack of drinking water. Along the way, many resorted to drinking water from bacteria-laden cattle tanks for survival.
place: label: place made
content: United States: Arizona
topic: label: Subject
content: Latino
label: Subject
content: Immigration
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ethnic
label: See more items in
content: Many Voices, One Nation
label: Exhibition
content: Many Voices, One Nation
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2015.3023.02
label: nonaccession number
content: 2015.3023
label: catalog number
content: 2015.3023.02
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Water Bottle
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: plastic (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: plant fiber (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 in x 6 in; 30.48 cm x 15.24 cm