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Boy On The Hill, Juarez – March 2002

Someone observed, generally, that in so-called third world countries, poor people have to live on top of hills and mountains (where it is more difficult to get water and where roads are rough and barely existent), but in first world countries the rich like to live on top of hills and mountains, for the “views.”

And the status.

Homeless Happy Birthday, El Paso, October 19, 2007

Regino Olivas-Mendoza, 47, hangs around a car wash in central El Paso. He wears a sign that says, “Homeless today, Is my birthday, can you help me?”

Women and the Red Bus -Oct. 1975

October 5, 2007

A funny thing about photography and time: it can capture milliseconds and it can capture decades, and all in the same photograph.

28-October 5, 2007

El Panteon nuevo, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico – 1988

The cemetery came before the barrio. An ultimate act of realism.

Black Cross on the FBA, August 2007

Summer on the FBA. Hot. 100.

This is Father Rahm Street, which is, actually, Fifth Street. Around the corner is El Paso Street which is the first block of America (or the last, depending on where you’re coming from).

Around the corner, to the south is where the Paso del Norte bridge from Juarez empties out. There are stories on this street, big life-journeys begin here. This is where dreams begin. Some people have called this the “Ellis Island of South America.” Maybe that’s the draw for me (my Father was born on that other immigration island in 1907). That was another dream. These are places where dreams can start.

The Black Cross mural for the violence against women in Juarez appeared a couple of years ago. Then they put a bus stop in front of it (dumb). Then they took the bus stop out but painted over the text (also dumb) about the violence to the women.

Whatever. Life passes and passes strongly. This is where I have spent a lot of my life.

Nothing stops the energy on the FBA. People are looking for their place, their direction, their dream. I’m looking. I’m there almost every afternoon.

The First Street of America #7, El Paso, Texas / August 2007

Sixth and El Paso Street is the first street in “America,” after crossing over the Paso del Norte Bridge from Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico into El Paso, Texas. This is the crossroads.

Musico perdido en las ruinas de Juarez / July 2007

El Centro, the downtown of Juarez, is going down.

La Mariscal, the zone of shops and bars and (say this quietly) brothels north of El Centro, the commercial zone north of El Centro stretching to the border with the U.S., is being demolished and is, mostly, gone.

The “Plan,” has come. Progress is here. Now there is hope for those who need the border to be “clean.”

It shall be sanitized.

Dignified Man #12

Cool Norteno, Plaza de Juarez – Juarez, Mexico / June 2007

The Plaza de Juarez in Juarez, Mexico is an ancient crossroads. The plaza stands in front of the Mision de Guadalupe, a church established in 1659 along the El Camino Real. The plaza today is still a crossroads and a transportation hub and, on Sundays, is vibrant, eclectic and fully the heart of the old Centro Juarez. Much of the area north of the Centro, the Plaza, and the Mision, the area between the old Juarez commercial district stretching north all the way to the U.S. border and El Paso, is currently, being demolished. The demolition is clearing the way for a commercial development that is projected to link up with El Paso’s south side and Downtown, also scheduled for demolition, just across the river to the north.

The transportation hub that has made the Plaza de Juarez the intense and interesting center of Juarez that it is, is scheduled to be relocated away from its current location.

The “Cool Norteno,” garbed in standard norteno clothes, and others, may or may not survive the “development.”

Snatched Mexican day laborer sits in the back of a Border Patrol van, El Paso 1999

Most “illegal immigrants,” incarcerated in El Paso are laborers who’s immigration activity is, merely, a two way commute, finding them returning to Juarez, Mexico, at the end of a work day. Being incarcerated by the Border Patrol inconveniences the worker but does not deter the activity. Wages in Juarez average around $5 to 6 day. In El Paso a Day Laborer makes an average of $ 25 to 40 a day. The difference in wages makes the bureaucratic discussion of deterrence moot.