This string rosary, made from a local plant fiber, has knots instead of beads to represent the prayer cycle. Rosaries are strings of beads used by Catholics to repeat prayers such as the Hail Mary and the Our Father. Rosaries in the Vidal collection are made from a wide variety of materials such as silver, gold, horn, seed, wood, and coral.
Description (Spanish)
Este rosario, manufacturado con fibras de una planta local, tiene nudos en vez de cuentas para representar el ciclo de plegarias. Los rosarios son collares de cuentas que usan los católicos para repetir plegarias tales como el Ave María y el Padre Nuestro. Los rosarios de la Colección Vidal están confeccionados con una gran variedad de materiales, tales como plata, oro, cuerno, semillas, madera y coral.
This basket was bought in Luquillo in 1979. The hanging supports are made of bejuco, processed fiber from the century plant, or maguey. A large metal disk was placed around the top to keep rodents from crawling into it from above. Widely used in rural kitchens, it is called a canestillo in the center of the island and a barandillo in the north.
Description (Spanish)
Esta canasta colgante fue adquirida en Luquillo en 1979. Los soportes están hechos de bejuco, fibra procesada del maguey. Se colocó un disco de metal grande alrededor de la parte superior para evitar que se introdujeran los roedores. Se utiliza mucho en las cocinas rurales y se la conoce como canestillo en el centro de la isla y como barandillo en el norte.
A white, plastic toothbrush with green grip and synthetic fiber bristles comb 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.
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 coyotes (human smugglers), and the risk of getting caught by the Border Patrol.
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 this comb, backpacks, excess clothes, and empty water bottles.
