Physical space and geography have always played an important part in the social world

since it gives us a perspective on how and where to live and have a safe place. Social inequality

is affected in every way by the way we treat and manipulate our environment. Such as what

Marshall Berman talks about in New York City: Seeing Through Ruins. We grow up in an

environment we believe is home and one of the best places to live, but to everyone else who

lives in a better economic and social environment, they think where we live is a dump. I have

lived in the Bronx all my life, and every time since noticeably young, the mention of that puts

people who do not live in the Bronx on edge. I never understood that until I got older and

started to understand that the Bronx has always been one of the worst boroughs to live in.

Now we see are thrown into neighborhoods that are filling up with nicer buildings with inflated

rent prices, gentrification and buildings that are not even remodeled full of rats and

cockroaches charging almost double what they used too. In Land of the Open Graves, we follow

Jason De Leon, traveling the desert with Bob Kee, who takes time out of his day to look for

immigrants’ bones buried in the desert. Something the police themselves do not want to take

the time to do. Immigrants are not prioritized especially those trying to illegally cross the

border. Just as De Leon says, “Americans today have no problem putting nationality before

humanity.” Everyone who is not a European immigrant have been given violent hate towards

immigrating to the United States, looking for a better living. American has forgotten that they

too were once immigrants crossing a border that was not theirs to claim.