My scholarly work on border art, migration, and forensics led me to the Águilas del Desierto (Desert Eagles) and their heroic humanitarian mission. The Águilas are Latinx immigrants of humble means who at least once a month travel in their trocas[pickup trucks] from San Diego, California, to the Arizona desert, and search on foot for the remains of missing migrants. I joined Águilas del Desierto in 2016 and have since then had the privilege to witness how their selfless devotion brings peace of mind to grieving families in Mexico and Central America. The desert is a vast cemetery where the fresh bodies and dried bones of migrants lie exposed under the scorching sun. By venturing

deep into the wilderness of the borderlands and searching for the remains of missing migrants, Águilas del Desierto lay bare the tragic reality of migrant death. And it is the enormity and injustice of this widespread though barely acknowledged tragedy along the border that compelled me to go beyond scholarly writing: In search of a more efficient tool able to raise awareness about migrant death and also highlight the heroic

humanitarian work of Águilas del Desierto, I approached Kristy, my colleague at UCLA, and that is how our documentary came about.

––MAITE ZUBIAURRE

When Maite first described her work with the Águilas del Desierto, I was immediately captured by the Sisyphean task of toiling against the enormity of the border crisis. Who are these people so committed to such thankless work? I thought the search itself would be a very resonant way for people to reflect on border issues outside of mere statistics and numbers, in an immersive kind of way. I was also drawn to the counter-narrative of the Águilas themselves. We often see images of activists who are college-age, white, and educated. But here was a group that had grown organically, in response to an injustice that affected them intimately, and coming from very humble origins. I was immediately drawn to that part of the story.

I gathered a small crew and set out with Maite to join them just a few days before Christmas. We met the Águilas pre-dawn at a lonesome gas station in the small town of Gila Bend. After driving all night from their homes in Southern California and sleeping in their cars, the Águilas welcomed us to the group and discussed their routes for the day. As we headed toward our search destination, our caravan grew: Mexican and Dutch journalists arrived to walk with the organization; college-student volunteers who had heard about them from their Facebook page joined; a canine rescue unit coming back from fire sweeps in Northern California accompanied the group for the first time. The Águilas, accepting of young and old, veterans and newbies, cannot keep up with the requests for missing migrants.

We ended up filming two searches, one in a temperate November and the other in a lethally hot July. Each time the pace was rigorous. The desert appears flat, but cholla, rocks, and surprisingly wide ant hills make for difficult terrain. It is hard to keep up, and as a film crew, we lost each other many times, camera and sound completely out of sync. At the end of each day, we gathered together and made camp. We ventured out into the desert again the next morning to squeeze in a few more search hours before everyone headed back home, many to work early Monday morning. As arduous as it all is, the Águilas remain focused on the travails of the migrants themselves, hopeful to reunite families with their lost ones.

We also knew we wanted to incorporate the voices of the migrants in some capacity early on. We had hoped to film this in more of a documentary context, with the Águilas receiving the calls and us filming how that part of the work they do happens. When we started to edit, however, we realized there was a lot to be gained by staying in the realm of the desert and the search the entire time. As a filmmaker, I am a fan of the disembodied voice and have used that a lot in my work. In this instance, I liked the idea of audiences actively using their imaginations to conjure who is speaking. We have to imagine who these people are, where they are coming from, and, ultimately, how they must feel. And, of course, it is cyclical. We begin and end with their cries for help. They are innumerable. And they will continue until policies change.

–– KRISTY GUEVARA-FLANAGAN