IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE Photographs by David Bacon
Global Museum Fine Arts Building Room 203 San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA
October 3 - December 7, 2023 Tuesday - Thursday, 11-4 PM Opening Reception October 14, 1-3 PM
As consumers we know that what we eat appears in the stores when we need it. We know that it must take the labor of people to get it there. Thanks to the media we know that most of the people who put food on our table are immigrants, and mostly from Mexico. And many of us know or remember that Cesar Chavez led a movement to change their conditions.
But how much do we really know about the lives of the people who feed us - today? How does it feel to do this work - some of hardest labor we can imagine? What answers do farm workers themselves have to their poverty and endless migration?
In the Fields of the North is a series of evocative photographs, accompanied by moving oral narratives, that takes us into this world - letting us see in images and hear in voices what it means to be a farm worker today.
The images provoke questions. * What does it mean to see a farm worker woman living in a tent on a hillside, years after we made the birthday of Cesar Chavez a national holiday? * What is the physical cost of working bent over double in a muddy strawberry row, season after season? * When the people who pick the blueberries we eat want a better wage, do have to go on strike to get it? While certainly some things have changed for farm workers in 50 years, it's clear some things haven't.
The images are accompanied by 4 text panels of personal narratives, in English and Spanish. The exhibit is accompanied by a book published in February, 2017, by the University of California Press/El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Tijuana), which contains over 300 images and ten narratives.
In a media environment in which migration and the border itself have become the subjects of controversy, this exhibit is a reality check. It shows us the world beneath the media stereotypes. And it reminds us that this world of migration and labor makes an invaluable contribution to us all - the food we eat.
The exhibit and book travel with the workers as the fruit and vegetable harvest season moves from south to north. It begins near the Mexican border, in the Imperial Valley and the hillsides of San Diego, California, and continues through the giant agricultural fields of Salinas and the San Joaquin. The exhibit documents farm labor unions in California and Washington State, and shows that the conditions facing workers in the fields and labor camps of North Carolina are virtually the same.
In one image farm workers from the Gallo wine ranch in Sonoma County cross arms, hold hands and sing at the end of a meeting to protest the unwillingness of the company to sign a union contract - part of the culture of the United Farm Workers. Farm workers in another photograph, in a Good Friday ritual near Fresno, speak of poverty, forced migration from Oaxaca, and immigration raids - the experience of being treated as "illegal." Another photograph shows migrant education teacher Jenny Dowd helping students, many of them from Mixtec families, learn the words to a song at Ohlone Elementary School in Watsonville. And another shows the successful strike of blueberry workers in Washington State, and the formation of their union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia.
Even in California, a relatively high wage state, many workers make less than minimum wage. Migrants often sleep in shacks or tents under trees, in their cars in parking lots, or crowd ten to a room in trailer parks. Rural homelessness and poverty are widespread, but invisible. This project makes them visible. It also shows community resiliance and resistance - communities rising in protest from California to Washington State.
David Bacon, a photographer and journalist, has produced this exhibition in cooperation with California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (FIOB), and Familias Unidas por la Justicia/Community2Community..
"These extraordinary, carefully chosen portraits of farmworkers, their families and communities show the continuity of exploitation, despite a century of heroic struggles and brave promises. At the same time, this project is infused with the youthful energy, hope and toughness of the people in the fields, including young immigrants from indigenous communities of southern Mexico, rebuilding their pre-Columbian cultures."
-- Mike Davis OTHER PHOTO EXHIBITIONS / OTRAS EXPOSICIONES DE FOTOS
MAS QUE UN MURO / MORE THAN A WALL Photographs by David Bacon / Fotografias por David Bacon
International Meeting on Human Mobility 2023 Encuentro internacional sobre movilidad humana 2023
Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo Palacio Nacional Moneda 13, Centro Histórico Centro, Cuauhtémoc 06000 Ciudad de México CDMX, Mexico
More Than a Wall / Mas que Un Muro explores the many aspects of the border region through photographs taken by David Bacon over a period of 30 years. These photographs trace the changes in the border wall itself, and the social movements in border communities, factories and fields. This bilingual book provides a reality check, to allow us to see the border region as its people, with their own history of movements for rights and equality, and develop an alternative vision in which the border can be a region where people can live and work in solidarity with each other. - Gaspar Rivera-Salgado
David Bacon has given us, through his beautiful portraits, the plight of the American migrant worker, and the fierce spirit of those who provide and bring to us comfort and sustenance. -- Lila Downs
Published by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte with support from the UCLA Institute for Labor Research and Education and the Center for Mexican Studies, the Werner Kohlstamm Family Fund, and the Green Library at Stanford University
"The "border" is just a line. It's the people who matter." - JoAnn Intili, director, The Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund
IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE
Photographs and text by David Bacon University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte 302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9” paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)
order the book on the UC Press website: ucpress.edu/9780520296077 use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount
Exhibited throughout the pandemic in the Cecil H. Green Library at Stanford. The online exhibition (https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bacon), which includes additional content not included in the physical show, is accessible to everyone, and is part of an accessible digital spotlight collection that includes significant images from this body of work. For a catalog: (https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/NonVendorPubOrderform2017.pdf)
Online Interviews and Presentations
Red Lens Episode 6: David Bacon on US-Mexico border photography Brad Segal: On episode 6 of Red Lens, I talk with David Bacon.
David Bacon is a California-based writer and documentary photographer. A former union organizer, today he documents labor, the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights. We talk about David's new book, 'More than a Wall / Mas que un muro' which includes 30 years of his photography and oral histories from communities & struggles in the U.S.-Mexico border region. https://www.patreon.com/posts/71834023?fbclid=IwAR0BRhHYbrYU3BoeoAMFKU_zdHs5Xirmmt1LzQtfwf1yD8p9EYLXKhzzbDE
Letters and Politics - Three Decades of Photographing The Border & Border Communities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvs6SyXsM-4 Host Mitch Jeserich interviews David Bacon, a photojournalist, author, broadcaster and former labor organizer. He has reported on immigrant and labor issues for decades. His latest book, More Than A Wall, is a collection of his photographs of the border and border communities spanning three decades.
Exploitation or Dignity - What Future for Farmworkers UCLA Latin American Institute Based on a new report by the Oakland Institute, journalist and photographer David Bacon documents the systematic abuse of workers in the H-2A program and its impact on the resident farmworker communities, confronted with a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKa2lHJXMs
Documentary Matters - View from the US Social Documentary Network Four SDN photographers explore themes of racial justice, migration, and #MeToo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWl-uENA7SQ&t=1641s There's More Work to be Done Housing Assistance Council and National Endowment for the Arts This exhibition documents the work and impact of the struggle for equitable and affordable housing in rural America, inspired by the work of George “Elfie” Ballis. https://www.thereismoreworktobedone.com/david-bacon Dark Eyes A beautiful song by Lila Downs honoring essential workers, accompanied by photographs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdC2gE3SNWw
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008) Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008 http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
