This research project, which is designed for introductory anthropology courses, centers around the The Land of Open Graves, a four-field anthropological ethnography by Dr. Jason de León (UCLA, anthropology). This project invites students to explore their potential and communicate their ideas using skills and a medium other than essays and research papers, namely digital zines. This assignment was inspired by a project first developed by Dr. Sherry Zane (UConn, WGSS).

In these zines, students can take a more research-oriented approach. But zines also invite students to use creative elements, such as poetry and short stories (both original and otherwise), photography, and more personal narratives to delve deep into the migrant experience, and how it continuously shapes the United States and the globe culturally, politically, and economically. A copy of the detailed zine instructions are available upon request.

Below I have provided select examples of my students’ zines. I share these zines with my students explicit permission, and I have anonymized some of their names at their request.