Chasing After Something Bad
The Most Dangerous Beat: Juárez, Mexico
An important piece on the journalists of Juarez by Brent and Craig Renaud/New York Times
“Reporters in Juárez not only cover drug cartel violence but are often targets themselves.”
Juárez: Room For Everybody?
People, Horse, Van in Juarez by Bruce Berman ©2010
JUAREZ, Mexico – Juarez still stands. It is still Juarez. It is a city of my heart. I am not alone. It is insane what has happened in Juarez. There is no reference or metaphor: it just stinks. I walk the streets and there are “tastes,” of the old city. The “new city,” the one of Malls and chrome and green eco-glass, the nightclubs and shiny new cars has disappeared more than the old city has.
This might say something about what the condition of the city was before “The Troubles.”
Angelica Looks Up
Angelica, Segundo barrio, El Paso – Oct. 18, 2010
EL PASO –Angelica Alvarez. A true believer. A believer in her faith. A believer in a better day. A believer in joy.
I noticed her as she worked her way down the street, engaging every person that she encountered, leaving each person she talked with a smile on their face, enthusiastically waving goodbye to her, they no longer strangers.
I followed her.
The Light in Juárez
[flagallery gid=6 name=”Gallery”]
Is there any Light at the end of Juárez’s tunnel?
There are a lot of things in Juárez these days: widows, widowers, killers, thugs, riddled bodies, drug addicts, every day normal people, kids going to school, people being married, bombs and death across the street (almost) from the old “City Market.” Everything.
There is very little Light.
The city seems to have turned from sunny and bright and colorful to Black and White, like an old photograph, one that wasn’t “fixed,” very well and is losing it’s contrast and fading away. The brightness is gone. Light is at a premium, right now, for sure, in Juárez.
Letter to my friend: I’m On My Way Martin
Martin, man of dignity and courage, Lomas del Poleo, Summer 2009
Dear Martin,
I said I would be back to Lomas and I haven’t been back in a year now. It’s crazy. I drive to work in Las Cruces three times a week and I look to the west and I can see you, I can see Lomas, right there, the flat top mesa poking out from behind Cristo Rey.
No, I haven’t been back. I am sorry. Life caught up with me and I had to do my labors, take care of biz, run around like a chicken without a head. And, in the meantime, I have fallen in love with a photo project, far away from here, up in Nuevo Mexico, and I have given it a lot of my attention.
All weak excuses.
I said I’d be back and continue the work we began and I haven’t.
You -and sus vecinos, sus compañeros in Lomas del Poleo- are never out of my thoughts.
Do You Have Shares In Hell?
Street kids on Avenida Technologico, Juarez – 2010
Pictures?
More pictures of dead bodies in the streets of Juárez?
Hard to want to do. I’m not visiting. I live here. It’s better when you have to get the images for your boss/editor and then high-tail it to the airport.
But, I’m not working for a daily paper anymore.
Sequesterer(alleged) Sequestered
la acusación (perp walk) en Juárez, May 15, 2010
Iasi Emanuel Rodriquez Gamez , aka “El Enano (the dwarf),” 22, is led down a hallway, by a member of the Federal Police at the Ministry of Justice (Procuraduria de Justicia del Estado) in Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
He is accused of being the leader of a kidnapping gang that kidnapped at least 19 people. Authorities alleged Rodriguez, 22, took orders from suspected kidnappers Ernesto “El Neto” Piñon de la Cruz and Jesus Eduardo “El
Lalo” Soto Rodriguez. This group is accused of committing 39 kidnappings since December 2008. The “El Lalo y de Neto,” gang has operated in Juarez over the past three years.
“El Paseo” (With Death in the Shadows)
Town plaza, Zaragoza, Chihuahua-05/08/2010
Sunny normal day.
In Zaragoza/Juárez?
Impossible!
I couldn’t work it in -excuses!- but beyond the Tarahamara woman and her brood, in the deep darkness of the trees, protected by yellow police tape and the Policia Federal -who shooed me away- lies a dead woman in her twenties.
Cause of death? Bullet wound.
Reason for death? Unknown.
Plaza Zaragoza. Gateway to the east valley of Juarez, the new turf of the Cartel who have all but emptied the towns there, clearing them like you’d clear a loading dock, which is what the Cartel has done.
Anything in the way is burned or buried.
Maybe this woman was in the way.
Fire in Juárez
Half Dead City Is Fully Alive
Zaragoza (Juarez), Chihuahua, street kids at scene of a murdered woman, 05/08
©Bruce Berman 2010
Two border towns.
El Paso and Juarez.
One city is half dead and the other is in a coma. Guess which is which?
As always, a trip to Juarez puts everything in perspective and raises big questions. For openers: We don’t have to do all the things we think we need to do, there are worse things than physical death and injury, watch out for what you hear, and, we should never believe anything except what our eyes feel.
My eyes tell me Ciudad Juárez is alive.
I salute you, injured Madame Juárez.
FOR SLIDESHOW, GO TO NEXT PAGE:
(Not) The Americans
At least 6 police and one sicario killed in Juarez
Dead Police and Murderer in Juarez by heroic
by anonymous El Diario de Juarez photographer
Today in Juarez. More of the same. If this were anywhere else we’d be sending aide and 120,000 troops. Instead we send DEA Agents (under the terms of the “Merida Initiative”) and clandestine military “trainers,” to train soldiers and police…to do what, exactly?
The last time I heard the term “trainers,” it was the early and mid sixties and the trainers were being sent to Viet Nam.
How’d that work out for us?
More importantly, how’d that work out for Viet Nam?
Watch out Mexico, there are many many dollars seeking calamities. Buy cheap, wait, sell strong.
Anyway, six Federales and one murderer (sicario), today, so far.
Same old…
My Window and Mi Compañeros a Sur: Season’s Greetings!
Guadalupe #41, El Paso – Dec. 18, 2009
This third floor window looks out onto the Cordova Bridge to Juarez, three blocks to the south. It’s the Season. Guadalupe, I will light you every night -and a string of Christmas lights too- for the rest of the holiday. If anyone in Juarez sees this, please wave at me, say hello, know I am with you and I am waving at you, too, and I will be visiting with you, soon.
Andale compañeros. Vida sobre todo.
Note: Yes Victoria, I tilted the frame!
A Warm Farewell
A piece written to my photography students at the end of a fine semester at New Mexico State University. Forgive the “first person.” Originally posted on their class website at www.nmsu.documentaryshooters.com:
Brucini w/New Blanket from a Good Friend, El Paso –Dec. 9, 2009
So it comes to this, the semester ends, we go our own way, we know more for having known each other.
We have had our ambitions and we have had our disappointments but, what we mostly have had, I think, is a journey of discovery.
At least, it’s has been that way for me.
I was given something wonderful today: a very warm blanket from a very good and thoughtful friend (she had heard that my Loft is frigid in the winters, a concrete old factory building of a palace, not designed to be lived in).
I stopped on the way home for some Christmas lights. First time in my life I have bought any. How can one not succumb to this Season when such kind gestures are extended?
Fuzz
Alameda in Mist, December 2, 2009
The view south, across Alameda street, across the Chamizal, three blocks beyond, across the bridge, into Juarez, into Chihuahua, into Mexico, beyond.
Usually the view is razor sharp. The last few days have fuzzed things up: snow, rain, and, now, this morning, fog.
Been looking south across this razor sharp landscape for a long time and, finally, a little fuzz feels right. There will be no clarity. Better people than I have written and viewed this border, came up with “clarifications,” and “explanations,” and “revelations,” and yet it goes on, untamed, inexplicable, roque.
I kiss you, SNOW!
El Puente Cordova, El Paso/Juarez, November 30, 2009
Snow!
A rarity in this no-mans-land.
Hardship. No one is ready for it. Not man nor beast nor domicile. The aftermath will be unnavigable mud on some of the streets in Juarez: there’s always a fire from people using heaters they’re not used to using; tons of $14.95 coats will be sold on El Paso Street and Stanton Street and the various Fallas Paredes tiendas all over town; car crashes aplenty; you can bet on it. The homeless freeze. Rich people buy juniper logs for five bucks apiece to have their moment of apres ski. Everyone will adapt eventually, but by then we’ll be back in T-shirts and shorts; my loft turns to a freezer; life is anew. This is a place of the sun, not really set up for anything else.
“Rats” in a bad spot (or is it pretty?)
Pretty spot/bad times-Juarez 2009
Juarez / October 2009
Murders continue.
Record year.
Day of the Dead is coming. Like every day hasn’t been that.
The streets have an eerie decay to them. Litter. Boarded up windows. Still a lot of hustle but the nights are empty and in the shadows are things no one wants to see.
Dignity In Juarez
Dignified man #7, Juarez ©2009 Bruce Berman
Juarez/13 June 2009
So what else is there in Juarez besides murder and catastrophe?
Right now, it doesn’t seem like anything.
But, then, there are those moments.
Tender Mercies.
I walk the streets. I walk the beaten down downtown. I bus through the factory landscape with For Lease signs more plentiful every time. I walk through the night clubs on Avenida Lincoln, defying myself, defying my fear.
But it’s there. The noise comes out of the clubs, loud, but not the joyous sound, more like the power-driven sound of defiance and booze.
People wait for the situation to end. It will. Someday.
Daily, the murder rate climbs, like an upward missile, slicing through the inherent good nature of this state and city, through this sunny northern Mexico metropolis that was turned into, first, a factory for first world consumption and, then, a monument to the future of world global wage reality. It was that, just a few years ago.
Seems like an entire epoch ago.
Murder Is A Teaching Moment (Editor Says…)
Local TV Handles Vilolence In Juarez (at least Art about violence)
- SEE FULL VIDEO ABOUT THE ART CONTROVERSY:
- >http://www.kvia.com/
- >Go to page #6 of videos
- >Hit:”Controversial border art makes waves”
Your Editor Stumbles Into a Defense Of Decapitated Heads (Art) At El Paso’s Library
July 9, 2009
Editor’s Note: Here is what they left on the “cutting room floor”
Dominoes Fall
Rush Hour, Juarez – July 9, 2009
You keep hearing about the murders.
Bad.
Real bad.
They are the wind that blows in the perfect storm.
Woman of Lomas del Poleo
Lomas del Poleo For Now
Tres niños before The Grid, June 2009
Lomas del Poleo/Juarez, Chihuahua/Mexico
June 20, 2009
Lomas del Poleo. The battle goes on. More people leave. People fight to stay. A mean strip of ten lane highway has snaked its way through Lomas del Poleo (see previous posts or Google it). The Developers got what they needed and left what they didn’t, more or less. They don’t even blink as they plow ahead. This highway is going to happen, no matter what. The development will follow, is gonna happen, no matter what. Nothing stops the grinder. The Grid viene: Diamond Shamrock, The Chicken Colonel, Pemex, trucks full of electronic crap, three bedrooms, two baths, probably a Wal Mart (whoa..let’s not get too crazy!), the same vexing and stinking Grid that we hate and that people fight to have (Iran, Cuba, Libya, you, too, can have it!). There goes the texture, and, in the case of Lomas del Poleo, the isolation and faux rural vibe, the farm at the edge of the city, the special dream that has been Lomas: get out of the city, raise some chickens, leave us alone. A quiet hope on the edge of always possible chaos that is Juarez.
Distractions de Juarez
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!).
Que Miras Musico: Change
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).
No Futbol War
“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 Magic Eye
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).
Juarez Will Not End
Otra Linea in Juarez, March 2009
You start to wonder if it’ll ever end but it will end.
La violencia. The violence.
Sweet Border: Illegal and Bad
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.
None Illegal
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?