photos from the edge 32 - DANCING IN DARK TIMES By David Bacon Contexts - Sociology for the Public - Journal of the American Sociology Association Volume 25 Issue 1, Winter 2026 https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2026/05/photos-from-edge-32-dancing-in-dark.html  In many agricultural fields on the West Coast, you're more likely to hear Mixteco and Triqui spoken than Spanish. Both are common languages among the indigenous people of southern Mexico, many of whom now pick apples in California's century-old orchards or grapes for prestigious Napa and Sonoma County wineries. Without their labor, rural economies would collapse. Yet Mixtecos and Triquis are targeted by ICE in immigration raids terrorizing rural communities. In farmworker families, mothers and fathers now give their children the phone numbers to call in case their parents get picked up on the way to or from work. It can be an act of bravery simply to walk to the store or drive at night. Against this backdrop, when Healdsburg's Triquis and Mixtecos came out to celebrate the unique culture they brought with them on their two-thousand-mile journey from Oaxaca and Guerrero, it was an act of resistance. They call their festival the Guelaguetza. It includes a fabulous display of dancers in elaborate masks and tall headdresses performing to brass and woodwinds playing music from home. Every indigenous town in Mexico has its own dance; the Guelaguetza brings them together in all their riotous variety. The largest Guelaguetza is held in Oaxaca itself, but over the last four decades, the population of Mixtecos, Triquis, Chatinos, and other indigenous peoples in the United States has grown so large that there are now at least seven Guelaguetzas north of the border. Indigenous communities organize dance troupes, partly to show off their culture and partly to give young people growing up here a chance to learn the language and steps to the dance-and to imagine a home they may have never seen. The act of simply dancing in public on a Sunday in the town plaza was a way of saying, "Aqui esta-mos, y no nos vamos" ("We're here, and we're not leaving"). When Healdsburg's Triquis decided to do a Guelaguetza, it would be, as one organizer said, a Guelaguetza de Resistencia: a Resistance Guelaguetza. The act of simply dancing in public on a Sunday in the town plaza was a way of saying, "Aqui estamos, y no nos vamos" ("We're here, and we're not leaving"). Even Healdsburg's mayor and one of its council members came to respond, "We know who you are, and we are all welcome here." The late Mixteco community leader Rufino Dominguez Santos explained that dances and language are not just ways to celebrate identity-they are an essential glue that keeps communities together, helping them survive in a hostile environment. "Beyond organizing and teaching our rights," he told me, "we try to save our language. Even though 500 years have passed since the Spanish conquest, we still speak it. We are preserving our way of dancing and rescuing our lost beliefs-that nature is something sacred for us, just as it was for our ancestors." In the accompanying photographs, Healdsburg's indigenous community activists show their deep roots. The photos illustrate that despite fear and racism, the cultural traditions of their small hometowns in Mexico have been reproduced and are now celebrated in California, two thousand miles north.                        Immigrant Workers and the Recent History of Immigration Raids A presentation by David Bacon at the UCLA Latin American Institute, with photographs and transcript. 3/11/25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FlsyWTBWso David Bacon @photos4justice on the daily lives and ongoing struggles (both personal and political) of farmworkers - interview on Against the Grain with C.S. Soong BOOKS - LIBROS More Than a Wall / Mas que un muro El Colegio de la Frontera Norte https://david-bacon-photography.square.site/product/more-than-a-wall-mas-que-un-muro/1?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false En Mexico: https://libreria.colef.mx/detalle.aspx?id=7864 In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte https://www.ucpress.edu/books/in-the-fields-of-the-north-en-los-campos-del-norte/paper En Mexico: https://libreria.colef.mx/detalle.aspx?id=7586 The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013) WORK AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: The David Bacon Archive exhibition at Stanford Libraries https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bacon/browse For a catalog: (https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/NonVendorPubOrderform2017.pdf) THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums BROOKE ANDERSON PODCAST #8  LISTEN: https://linktr.ee/thatshowthelightgetsinpodcast (or anywhere you get your podcasts)MAS QUE UN MURO Cinco Entrivistas sobre la exposicion en el Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo, CDMX: Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eix0HEStpc Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO4IIBPs06U Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHtY-fgtsjs Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm_MNrEX2Mw Part 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpwSuBbgAQs
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Sunday, May 24, 2026
photos from the edge 32 - DANCING IN DARK TIMES
