A maze of constricted alleys spreads out at the bottom an old stone staircase that doubles back on itself, so convoluted that Zacatecanos call this place "El Labarinto", or "The Labyrinth." Here Primitivo Romo sits in front of a wall of herbs packed into tiny bags, in a botanica stall he inherited from his mother when she died a few years ago. He inherited her knowledge as well, and now his nephew runs another stall down a nearby alleyway with the knowledge passed on in the Romo family.
The stalls are half hidden in the lowest level of the Mercado del Arroyo de la Plata, or the Silver Canyon Market. Two more levels are above. Stalls on one sell Zacatecan mole, either picoso or dulce, hot or sweet, from big plastic buckets in front of the candy display. On another workers and women shopping for their families sit on plain stools at the comedores economicos, or affordable eateries, where cooks spoon the famous goat mole, cabrera, into bowls.
Unless you know the cook well, there's no point in asking for two other famous dishes, caldo de rata (rat soup) or caldo de vivora (snake soup). These are soups from the traditions of people from the countryside, used to eating the animals that live there (the rat is a country creature, not the urban variety), and some think of them even as a kind of medicine. Says Guadalupe Flores, a member of the state legislature, “Anybody that tries it once is going to love it and it will become their favorite dish. It is very similar to rabbit – only much more flavorful.”
Nevertheless, some laugh at these country traditions. But once in a while a campesino will come in from the farm, and from his pack at the back entrance will pull the skinned bodies, along with those of rabbits and chickens. The meat counters in the market sell the meat from larger animals - the cows, the goats and the pigs. For them, a truck pulls up at the same back entrance. The driver climbs into the rear, and up a mountain of meat, to fetch a beef quarter ordered by a market stall. Ernesto Serna lifts a several hundred pound piece onto his shoulders, and walks unsteadily beneath it into the labyrinth.
Other farmers come into the city with fruit. Francisco Cordero sells piles of strawberries, guavas and figs from his Campo Real farm in an impromptu stall on the sidewalk. Another country seller comes with his donkey. In the wooden saddle on its back it carries the big jars of pulque and colonche, agave and tuna (nopal) drinks with a little kick, under leaves to keep off the sun.
The streets of Zacatecas fill with people, selling and buying, walking or sitting. Workers paint the buildings next to the Alameda Park. A brass band and speeches celebrate the birthday of Benito Juarez, Mexico's first indigenous president. Soldiers in the local contingent of the National Guard, the new police created by President Lopez Obrador, stand in the hot sun, submachine guns at the ready.
Like most Mexican cities, popular protest is part of Zacatecas' culture as well. The women's movement is strong, and a recent march was met and prohibited by police protecting a government that somehow fears its own mothers, sisters and daughters. Activists then went to the former cathedral of San Agustin, now repurposed as a municipal gallery. At the inauguration of a show of paintings of peaceful landscapes, they confronted the government representatives there to open the exhibition. Each held a card with two letters. Standing together they read "Estado Terrorista" or Terrorist State.
And tucked away in this city filled with artists is the extraordinary project of the Fototeca Pedro Valtierra. Here Carlos gives lessons in ways to create extraordinary prints from negatives, in a process invented 150 years ago. In a vault behind a heavy metal door, aided by high tech climate controls, Karina Garcia protects the fototeca's archive of prints and negatives. The most prized come from Pedro Valtierra himself, Mexico's renowned radical photojournalist and native son of Zacatecas, for whom the institution is named.
Today people joke that there are more Zacatecanos in Los Angeles than in Zacatecas, but this is still a city that remembers its working class history. Aldo Alejandro Zapata Villa recalls on Facebook, looking at a photo of the market, "Memories of my childhood, of hard-working and entrepreneurial people, offering their merchandise, in those times when we learned all work has dignity."
David came up as a union organizer with the United Farm Workers and United Electrical Workers, then spent decades as a photographer, photojournalist, labor reporter, and radio host covering labor, migration, and global economy. In this week’s episode, we talk David’s journey from organizer to photojournalist, his early influences, the role of movement photographers, the importance of media workers taking collective action to support their labor rights, journalists speaking out to support a ceasefire in Gaza, and advice for new photographers developing their photographic practice. MAS QUE UN MURO Las comunidades fronterizas y sus movimientos de justica social Fotografias de David Bacon
Fototeca de Zacatecas Pedro Valtierra Fernando Millapando 406, Centro Historico, Zacatecas Marzo - Mayo, 2024
Cinco Entrivistas sobre esta exposicion, en el Museo Nacional de las Culturas del Mundo, CDMX:
La imagen de una cruz en el cementerio de Holtville, en California, Estados Unidos, con la leyenda “No olvidados”, con la que activistas religiosos reconocen a los migrantes muertos sin identidad, recibe al público de la exposición Más que un muro, de David Bacon.
Durante la inauguración, la directora del MNCM, Alejandra Gómez Colorado, manifestó que, desde hace años, este recinto complementa su discurso histórico y etnográfico con reflexiones que vienen desde la fotografía y el arte contemporáneo. Una línea acorde con el trabajo de Bacon, “una expresion dura y cruda de la vida que transcurre de uno y otro lado de la frontera México-Estados Unidos”.
Esta obra fotográfica dijo por su parte la jefa de la Unidad de Política Migratoria, Registro e Identidad de Personas, de la Segob, Rocío González Higuera, permiten acercarse a las historias, retos, éxitos y fracasos de cada persona que migra, desde dos puntos:
“El primero, la protección de la memoria contra el paso del tiempo, es decir, colocar la lente y los sentimiento sobre objetos y personas que nos permiten evocar que la frontera es un cúmulo de historias en desarrollo; el segundo, es la expresión de posturas frente a los procesos de movilidad, particularmente la migración irregular”.
Bacon, fotógrafo, escritor y activista social, comenzó a documentar las vidas y los movimientos sociales de migrantes, trabajadores agrícolas y comunidades afectadas por la globalización, hace casi cuatro décadas. El fotógrafo detalló que su aproximación a estas realidades inició en 1986, siendo trabajador de una fábrica y sindicalista con United Farm Workers. A lo largo de este tiempo, indicó, ha podido registrar cómo la política migratoria implementada por su país devino en una “política de muerte”, al orillar a quienes buscan el sueño americano a transitar por sitios peligrosos como el desierto de Sonora-Arizona.
En la línea fronteriza que atraviesa el desierto cual se ubican con exactitud 4,000 etiquetas forenses de restos recuperados de personas identificadas, y casi 2,000 de personas sin identificar. El visitante debe llenar estas fichas, acto que conmemora por unos instantes esas vidas perdidas No obstante, anotó David Bacon, la frontera es también tierra de vivos: “Los otrora pequeños pueblos de Ciudad Juárez y Tijuana son ciudades de millones. La frontera es el escenario de algunas de las luchas sociales más agudas de México. Los trabajadores de las fábricas organizan sindicatos independientes, mientras que los agrícolas se declaran en huelga en los campos de Baja California”.
En ese sentido, finalizó, las cerca de 30 fotografías que integran Más que un muro, “nos permiten ver a la gente, sus luchas por los derechos y la igualdad, combatiendo la histeria antiinmigrante y antimexicana”. WORKING COACHELLA Photographs by David Bacon
Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California 3933 Mission Inn Avenue, Suite 103 Riverside, CA 92501
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
