el paso juarez border – Page 4

border photography, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso juarez border, Immigration, Love, Segundo barrio, Texas, US/Mexico Border

Centro Family Train

June 16, 2009 No Comments

Family in Segundo barrio, El Paso – 2009

Thanksgiving Day.

Summer of 2009.

I see it every day.

That other day, the one in November, I guess it’s in there somewhere. Eating and stopping the world and traveling and the whole schmeer. That’s thankfulness, right.

What is the word for grinch in Thanksgiving-ese?

I see thanks every day in my barrio. I see thanks for the mere act of being alive and being safe and having someone who calls you Dad or Mom or Mijo.

Yeah, I’m a simpleton.

And I dig it, too.

border photography, el paso juarez border, New Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

There Goes Breakfast

May 25, 2009 No Comments

Rooster man of Chaparral, NM – 2008

He has been raising these birds since he was a teenager. Fighters are they, he and his birds.

Now, cockfighting is illegal in New Mexico. Outlawed. “Civility,” has come to the funklands. God help us. Now come the thiefs with pens. They been fighting this since Billy the kid.

The rooster man keeps raising his birds. Doesn’t know what else to do.

He speaks of the “Old Man,” and “Ralph,” “Juan Pedro,”and the others. Each has a name. There are hundreds.

When he speaks, he says their names softly, a Lover’s murmur whispering his loves’ names.

border photography, chihuahua, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico, US/Mexico Border

Distractions de Juarez

May 20, 2009 No Comments

Distraction de Juarez, Juarez, Mexico – April 2009

Violence? What violence?

Wha-a-a-a…we need distractions?

Si. Si se hace (I am scolding myself right now!).

border photography, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, US/Mexico Border

Dummy Babe (the real deal)

May 17, 2009 No Comments

Alien Babe in El Paso – May 2009

Sometimes it’s more fun to interact with dummies than it is people.

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Brave New World / Bad Candy

May 11, 2009 No Comments

Summer screen, El Paso – May 2009

Summer is here on the border. Hot. You know it’s summer when the umbrellas are out. Of course what’s in this image is not very “sopisticated.” Who walks in the Brave New World, anyway?

American Highway, border fence, border photography, chihuahua, el paso juarez border, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, New Mexico, Photo of the Week, Texas, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Que Miras Musico: Change

April 25, 2009 3 Comments

Musicos, El Paso – April 2009

Wary eyes.

Everyone’s wary, in El Paso/Juarez, these days. The border is at war, with itself, with it’s two yin/yang sides, with the Interiors of each of the two sides.

Everyone’s wondering where it’ll end, where they will fall on the have and have not scale, what’ll be left of this little rough Shangri La (not a Shangri La of paradise but a refuge for those who have fallen from paradise. Sort of a suburb of Shangri La).

American Highway, border photography, el paso juarez border, Photo of the Week

Star No More

April 11, 2009 No Comments

Star No More, Marfa, Texas – March 2009

The West, the American Highway (and the American fascination with it), Funk, ain’t what it used to be.

Fine with me!

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Ruin In Motion

April 7, 2009 No Comments

Ruin and Motion, Segundo barrio, April 2009

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No Futbol War

April 3, 2009 No Comments

“Maleno,” Juarez – March 2009

Juarez, March 13, 2009/ Estado Benito Juarez, Juarez, Chihuahua/Mexico

The Juarez Indios are a professional futbol team(soccer). They are in the middle of the Cartel Drug War. Much of the city of Juarez has rallied around the Indios, finding some “normalacy,” in the middle of the troubled Juarez violencia. Julio Daniel “Maleno” Frias is a star of the team, a “striker,” a troubled city’s hero. The city loves him, he’s a hero in the middle of bad news caused by rats. When “Maleno,” was younger he joined a gang. He got shot. He decided to change his life and he did. Maybe this is why the city fell in love with him, he’s a living metaphor for a city’s hopes. Maybe they just like the way he plays: smooth, quiet and intense.

Some players have left the team and others have sent their families back to the cities they came from (some in Mexico, one in Argentina), trying to avoid the touch of violence that has afflicted Juarez, Mexico’s third largest city.
The team is struggling to stay in the top tier of Mexico’s professional soccer league.
Attendance is sold out.

Futbol is trumping the war.

So far.

Life goes on.

border photography, chihuahua, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Border Magic Eye

March 25, 2009 2 Comments

Cordula at the fence, March 23, 2009

Anapra, NM/Colonia Anapra, Juarez, Chihuahua

Yesterday I worked with an incredible journalist from Der Spiegel (the German equivalent of Time). She is German, from the north of Germany. Works out of the DC Bureau. Sharp and smart and witty and ironic and puro journalist. We did a story at Fort Bliss. She was bright and lively and brave and charming and funny and we’d had a successful day and did a great story together. She wanted to see “El Paso.”

So we head for the border (I’m a one trick pony. To me, the border is El Paso).

border photography, chihuahua, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Juarez Will Not End

March 22, 2009 1 Comment

Otra Linea in Juarez, March 2009

You start to wonder if it’ll ever end but it will end.

La violencia. The violence.

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Dress Down in El Paso

March 12, 2009 No Comments

Dress down in El Paso-March 2009

border photography, chihuahua, el paso juarez border, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Sweet Border: Illegal and Bad

February 27, 2009 1 Comment

Sweet Border, Anapra, NM/Colonia Anapra, Juarez Chihuahua-Feb. 2009

Life goes on.

Mexico is a great pueblo. So is El Paso and southern New Mexico.

One reads the newspapers and one thinks the world has gone insane. Particularly here, on the border.

border photography, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

None Illegal

February 22, 2009 1 Comment

Border fence at Anapra, NM/Looking into Juarez-02/21/09

The border fence is a stinkin’ dirty bad joke.

Do these kids look like terrorists or narcotraficantes or, even, the dreaded low wage worker that every American company has winked at, invited, used and exploited for decades?

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Jumping over El Segundo

February 15, 2009 1 Comment

Jumping over El Segundo, El Paso-2009

American Highway, border photography, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

Alameda Street Showboat: Blast From The Past

February 8, 2009 No Comments

Alameda Street Showboat, El Paso-1987

Alameda Street is about (what’s this “about,” stuff?) to get stomped. Progress. New Hospital and Medical School down the Street. Progress.

‘ta bien, really. Time to move on. One thing about Urban Renewal and Plans: we have had the best of it and now you can have the rest. The next “blight,” that I move to -older and wiser now- there will be no Forwarding Address.

el paso, el paso juarez border, Photo of the Week

Jesus In The ‘Hood

January 31, 2009 No Comments

Jesus in the ‘hood, Armijo park, El Paso-2009

Jesus is greeting me. Or showing off his gang signage. Or just jivin’. Behind him, three blocks to the south, is Juarez. Armijo Park, deep in the Segundo barrio of El Paso is Jesus’ refuge.

Mine too.

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JUAREZ IN SMOKE

January 21, 2009 1 Comment

Juarez in smoke, 2009

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Blight? Schmite! Leave El Barrio alone.

January 18, 2009 No Comments

Guadalupe(s), Segundo barrio, El Paso-Oct. 2008

El barrio is a community. Bruised. Not what it was. Sitting on the border and prime target of speculators, er…ah…read that as “Developers,” but still standing. Go back and ask anyone in any American city, for the past 60 years if “Urban Renewal,” was about construction or destruction. If you actually need to, go ahead.

border photography, el paso juarez border

Lady in red (one of everyone)

January 14, 2009 No Comments

Lady in red/Segundo barrio, El Paso-2008

Father Rahm Street. The Church is the backdrop. Backdrop for everything. Still, the heart of the Segundo barrio. This is a community that is a community where everything is there. No gates. No price tag. Fifty nine years after the Fair Housing Act of 1949 was enacted -the Urban Renewal Act- this barrio goes on, ethnically Latino, still a community, long after most American city’s inner cores have been cleansed of the “unworthy.”

American Highway, border photography, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso juarez border, Photo of the Week

A Valentine (in Texas)

January 11, 2009 1 Comment

Cracked window in Valentine, Texas-Jan. 9, 2009

There I am, tooling through the vast landscape of West Texas, working for an English language newspaper working out of Abu Dubai, Arab Emirates. Don’t ask. I’m not sure I understand the assignment. Something about Bush returning to Texas and illustrating what two brothers, who were doing a road trip, saw (except, according to my editor, they were really bad photographers). What that has to do with West Texas, I can’t figure.

American Highway, border photography, chihuahua, el paso, el paso juarez border, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

Spin Balance landscape

January 8, 2009 No Comments

Spin Balance Landscape, Chaparral, NM-August 2008

Space. Glorious space. Wonk yer brain but we all need more space. Maybe because we wonk our brains so much. This is from the funklands of southern New Mexico. It looks right across at the slim tip of West Texas that is El Paso. Juarez, Chihuahua is the horizon.

Space. This is the Tender Mercy of No Man’s Land.

el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Juarez, Lomas del Poleo, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Lomas del Poleo revisited

January 1, 2009 No Comments

Protest for Lomas del Poleo, El Paso-Jan. 2008

It was only a year ago that the plight of the people of Lomas del Poleo was the highest priority of cross border activist politics. The people were systematically being robbed of their land, their court actions were, basically, being stonewalled, the injustice of the top to the bottom was blatant and a coalition of forces stepped up and, on this day did, a bi-national protest at the Mexican Counsulate in El Paso and the Mexican Counsulate in Jaurez.

That seems like long ago.

border photography, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso juarez border, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Border Christmas: Grinchy but real!

December 24, 2008 1 Comment

Border Christmas: Grinchy but real!/El Paso-Dec. 24, 2008

American Highway, chihuahua, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Santa? Juarez needs one

December 21, 2008 No Comments

Santa en Juarez-Dieciembre 2008

Venga Santa….come on!

If ever there was a place (other than certain parts of Africa right now) that need some kind of Devine Intervention, this is it.

Come on Santa! Forget the regalos. Paz, baby. Bring on the Peace.

If there is a Santa, bring on the Peace.

border photography, chihuahua, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso, el paso juarez border, illegal immigration, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border, Violence on border

Two way island

December 17, 2008 1 Comment

FBA#20-El Paso/Juarez-Dec. 2008

First block of America (FBA).

El Paso Street. La Frontera. I’d call it Texas but it ain’t. Everyone knows it if they’re from here. Texans hold their arms out, full length. Americans think it’s part of Mexico…or hell. New Mexicans…furgidaboutit! It’s all they have to really feel superior to.

El Paso, the nation-state of nowhere.

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Dogs shake the shoe

December 4, 2008 No Comments

Shakin’ the shoe, Memorial Park, El Paso-August 2008

Sometimes you just need to stop and smell the roses. Well, in the park, there’s lots of things to smell. A dog’s life can be wonderful. Humans? Well, sometimes, not so much.

One thing for sure: grabbing milliseconds of time out of the megaseconds of life is still -with no great reason behind it- a lot of fun.

border photography, chihuahua, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, US/Mexico Border

Angry princess/Princesa enojado

November 1, 2008 No Comments

Angry princess/Princesa enojado, El Paso-October 31, 2008

El Paso, Oct. 31 (Halloween), 2008

Halloween on El Paso Street, the first (or last) block of America. Everyone is dressed and laying a festival veneer over the street. 5:30pm, people still rushing to the bridge to Juarez to get home (especially these days, trying to get home before dark, before the murders begin).

Cookie is one angry Chihuahua.

border photography, chihuahua, Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week, Photography Tip, US/Mexico Border

Ciego Musico/Blind Music

October 24, 2008 No Comments

Calle Juarez, Ciego musico/Blind Music, Juarez – 1982

Juarez

This man played in the streets of Juarez for all my first years in La Frontera. He was blind. He was small. He made music like a special desert bird, joyful to bathe in just a drop of water, joyful to sing, even to the passing and witless American tourists.

border photography, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico, Photo of the Week

Jefe de Sindicado

October 11, 2008 No Comments

Sn. Delgadillo, Jefe de sindicado, Juarez- April 2006