By illustrating the literal and material waste that exist near the detention center, one is forced to conisder the environmental racisms that impact those who are incacerated. Additionally, the history of the site has layers of toxicity. Military presence in the high desert connotes a history of US imperialism, nuclear destruction, and the immediate bodily harm. Imperial ruination is thus happening both at the scale of the body and of the nation.
This image also implies a history of city planning that traditionally puts hazardous waste close to those on the fringes of bare life. This is clearly exemplified in Valerie Kuletz's Tainted Desert where she tracks the history of nuclear waste disposal on indigenous land. As one goes into her argument, one sees that the locaton of waste is never coincedental. Where waste goes is often determined by racism. The evnrionment thus begins to materialize that racism. In thinking this through, one can also see how the waste's proximity to the detention center is also not an accident.
