Desert View Tower and the X-Men
IN-KO-PAH MOUNTAINS, CALIFORNIA
DRIVING CALIFORNIA’S 140-MILE BORDER WITH MEXICO FROM the Arizona state line near Yuma to the Pacific Ocean is possible in a few hours—if you stay on the interstate. But after leaving Holtville late, I decided to stay in El Centro, California, for the night and finish the final leg the following day by taking the back roads. I headed west along Route 98 at seven the following morning.
Many workers were in the Imperial Valley fields by then—men and women moving with machines as one across the fields, the boxes and melons piled high around them. They wore broad hats, bandanas, and long sleeves. Their gloved hands worked quickly moving through green vines. Only their eyes were uncovered. I had eaten a fruit salad that morning in the small restaurant at the motel. The salad had contained cantaloupe. As I drove by them, seated, well nourished, and cool, I held my hand up toward the crouched workers as if in benediction, hoping that could mean something even if they didn’t see.
Soon the road channeled me back to Interstate 8, the Kumeyaay Highway, the only road that crossed the In-Ko-Pah Mountains up ahead. Leaving the last of the irrigated fields of the Imperial Valley, I glided up smooth roads through the high desert just as the eastern red sky began to turn golden and heat up fast. I reached the higher altitudes by the time the sun was baking the sand again. Halfway up I realized the air was cool enough to roll down my windows and let it blow over me.
X-men, wearing the discarded clothing of migrants who pass through this way, guard the Interstate 8 underpass near the Desert View Tower.
Near the top of the mountain, I spotted signs for the Desert Tower Museum. I took the next exit and was the first visitor of the day. I got out of the car in the chilly air, put on a jacket, and met the proprietor emerging from his house. He waved to me as he headed to unlock the door to the museum and tower. “Hello, I’m Ben Schultz,” he said.
Ben told me he had owned the museum only a few years, and seemed happy to invite me inside. I could tell from the age of the dusty collection that included Native American lore, mounted animal heads, and an assortment of photographs and memorabilia ranging from desert history to the American Revolutionary War alongside desert books, plant life, and more, that he had changed little about the inventory he purchased with the place. He loved describing the place and continued talking as I scurried up the spiral stairs and out onto the lookout platform to capture the soft morning light with my camera.
After I headed back down, Ben asked about my travels. He was intrigued and said that as a Quaker he was a contributor to the San Diego American Friends Service Committee office that worked with migrants and immigration reform policy. He had plenty of personal stories to tell as well.
Since arriving at the tower, Ben had seen hundreds of migrants traveling over the mountain pass along the interstate near his place. He had seen countless footprints and had found water bottles and clothing left by migrants. “They always come right through the canyon below here; the paths funnel them toward a gulley over on the other side of the interstate. Often at night a Border Patrol agent parks his truck at the bottom of the hill and the landscape funnels the migrants toward him. They just walk right up to his vehicle and he loads them in. It’s sad. You can walk there from here—you just go under the bridge and then follow the path up the hill. You’ll see their clothing and all the footprints in the sand.”
I asked him what he thought about all the agents parked nearby. “The way I see it, the Border Patrol is just one big federal jobs program,” he told me.
A “Roadside America” entry I had seen online about Desert Tower characterized the migrants as a tourist attraction, quite different from Ben’s take: “Tourists who carry their own binoculars might spot the U.S. Border Patrol apprehending illegal immigrants streaming across a nearby crossing in the mountains. Prime your camcorders if you leave via East I-8—you might witness parades of the recently arrived escorted along the shoulder. No stopping allowed!”
Ben added before I left, “You have to see W. T. Radcliffe’s sculptures before you go to the other side.” I went to the sculpture garden entrance. The introductory plaque explained that the rocks were natural quartz and granite outcroppings that an out-of-work engineer in the 1940s had carved into a variety of shapes, including birds, mammals, reptiles, and monsters. Radcliffe used red, black, and white paint for accents on the gray rock. All seemed whimsical at first, but over a rise was a profile of a skull with a painted eye staring back that stopped me in my tracks. Behind that sculpture, on the other side of the interstate, I could see the path where the migrants traveled, likely some of them just a few hours before. Juxtaposed, the skull rock and its background told a story Radcliffe couldn’t have been privy to then, but that captured today’s border story perfectly.
The last thing Ben asked me before I left the parking lot to head toward the migrant trail was, “Did you see the X-men on the way in?” I had no idea what he meant. He explained: “I have a crazy neighbor who finds discarded clothing left by the migrants and uses yucca stalks and makes scarecrow-like creations.” He assured me I would see them if I walked down the hill toward the interstate bridge.
A platoon of X-men awaited me at the bottom of a steep sandy incline. They stood close to human height, though some seemed bent in various stages of agony. One knelt as if falling on his face dying, or perhaps in prayer, or both. An “X” of yucca stalks made their arms and legs. The articles of clothing are left by migrants who drop them as they head under the bridge, perhaps running or suffering from the heat, or maybe just tired of the extra weight. Though the figures are headless, the dried flowers of the yucca protrude through the clothing and give the impression of fingers or hair. There are migrant footprints everywhere around the X-men, as signs of real migrants merge with their unnerving representations.
From what I learned from Ben, this was not necessarily sympathetic art. The figures started to become ghosts, border scarecrows, death angels all led by the head Grim Reaper waiting to harvest new victims. I took pictures as I slipped past them, being careful not to touch as if on a sacred burial ground, and also trying not to run. I knew they were just man-made creations, but they had started to come alive, and I couldn’t make myself stay any longer. Migrant footprints were all over the pathway leading from there to the Border Patrol parking area just as Ben had said. One blue off-brand athletic shoe lay on the path leading over the ridge. Had the wearer lost it fleeing? Had he gone on with just one? Every piece of clothing, water bottle, and food wrapper strewn over the ground evoked other stories.
Just down the hill a mile or so was a blue flag flapping hard in the morning wind. It marked a water drop maintained by the Humane Borders group. I wondered how many migrants had stopped there. Inside the plastic bin at the base of the thirty-foot flagpole were packets of food, Band-Aids, and almost always water. But many, of course, never made it that far.
. . .
I DROVE THROUGH Jacumba on Route 94 and stopped for lunch at Barrett’s Junction Café and Mercantile: a bar, dance hall, souvenir shop, and grill rolled into one. Mexico was playing France in the Copa Mundial on TV as I sat and ate a sandwich and fries. Several local men were watching along with the proprietor and I joined them. Elsa, a Latina woman who spoke little English, took the orders, cooked the meals, and served them. She glanced up at the TV occasionally as she worked, but showed no emotion about the game.
While I was eating, a Border Patrol agent walked into the restaurant. His head was shaved and he wore high black boots. He was one of the more intimidating officers I’d seen. His pistol, handcuffs, and other equipment on his belt passed close to my shoulder as he walked by. I leaned back a little, and we nodded and said “hello” as he brushed past. He ordered at the cash register and then stood at the counter while Elsa prepared the eleven burgers he ordered for himself and his crew.
Elsa worked fast and then nervously handed the bag to the owner, who in turn walked over to offer it to the officer. The officer looked in the bag and realized he had gotten the wrong number of hamburgers—he was one short. He told the owner, who shouted back to Elsa, “Uno mas!” and Elsa scrambled to fix the missing burger. The agent waited patiently, looking over at the soccer game and chatting with the other men watching. He seemed not to notice Elsa at all. Elsa got the other burger ready and handed it to the owner, who passed it to the officer. The officer thanked the owner and walked out in a hurry.
A few minutes later, I stood up to leave. Mexico was leading France, and things were looking good for the underdog. Leaving a bigger tip than usual, I got up from the table, walked over to thank Elsa, waved to the proprietor and nodded to the patrons, walked out into the California sun, and drove toward Imperial Beach.