border photography, Funk, Murals

RUNNING DOG

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Running Dog, El Paso, November 2023

Text and Photograph by Bruce Berman

I thought I was bringing “the border” into homes that knew it not.
I no longer think that.
I remember an acquaintance, at an exhibition I had, coming up to me after the show and talk and saying, “Now I really know the border and I’ve lived here all my life.”
I was flattered and felt great gratitude. After all, that was my intention in photography, to show and tell what others didn’t see or know.
He then said, I’d buy a photograph, but my wife just couldn’t see one that fit her new color scheme for our living room.
I didn’t know what to say. What could you say?
I understood that when he said he finally “knew the border,” he actually meant he finally could see how he could use what I saw and made for his own needs and wants.
¿Interesante, eh? It’s OK, but I hope for more.
I’ve come to know that most people overlay themselves on the border–maybe on all photography–and for them whatever is there is what is already embedded there, within them, no matter what the image shows.
So be it.
I look for coherence in what is incoherent and hope that someone–anyone–sees what I saw, felt what I felt, but most importantly, comes to know what I know from it.
I have have no expectations.

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border photography, Culture, El Paso-Juárez

RED BUS

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The Red Bus, Paso del Norte International Bridge, El Paso/Juárez, 1989

Photograph and Text by Bruce Berman

The Old Red Bus ran back and forth over the Juárez International bridge for decades. The bus itself was from the late 1950s, a GM. First photo I ever took when I got to El Paso and started wandering around was of the Red Bus, on El Paso Street. I noticed the women, from 18 to late 40s, lined up. I came to know that they were “maids,” low wage women from Juárez that came over every day and served the Anglos of a neighborhood north of downtown. It was called Kern Place. At the end of the day -those that worked by the day and not the week- would walk south down the hill to “EL Centro,” get on the bus and go home, to Juárez
Generations of Anglo kids were raised by these “maids.” Tons of dishes were washed. Beds were made. Laundry was done. They watched the American culture and went home. Key word: Home. Theirs. Another world.
I shot that old photo in October 1975.

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Tech, Techno-Depression

THREE YEARS FIVE MONTHS EIGHT DAYS LOST!

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Tear drops by ©Man Ray, 1930

Text by Bruce Berman

Dear Border-Blog reader/viewer.
You will notice there is a three and a half year gap from March 18, 2016 to October 12, 2020.
I have not been lazy. Frustrated? Yes. Bummed? At times. Optimistic? Of course.
Last August we had a malware attack. I maintain and post on five different websites, this one being the grandaddy of them all. Each had to be shut down, suspended and pronto! The entire host’s hard drives would be infected if the site stayed up.
So, we shut it down.
I’ve missed it a lot.

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el paso juarez border, New Horizons, Teaching

ANOTHER DAY OTRO PESO

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Zoomed-out, desk, window south, El Paso, Texas (Juárez, México in b’grd)., May 18, 2021

End of a semester. End of an era. My smiling mask of self confidence, of confidence-projecting, of being reassuring has wound down to a needle tip. Sat at this desk for 14 months, rising to the occasion of teaching remotely. Three semesters of little grey rectangles talking with me and me with them.
They rose to the challenge and so have I.
And I’m fried!

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border photography, Mexican History, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Women, Women Warriors

SOLDADERAS/WOMEN SOLDIERS

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Maria Gonzalez and soldaderas.
Maria Gonzalez and soldaderas, Photograph from the Runyon Collection/Library of Congress

 

This photograph was taken during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), exact date unkown.The photograph was taken by commercial photographer Robert Runyon (1881-1968), a longtime resident of South Texas. His photographs document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande Valley.

This image was shot on a glass-plate negative ; 5×7 in. Camera unknown.

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America, el paso, Gentrification, Industry, Juarez, Texas, US/Mexico Border

MEMORIAL

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Photograph and text by Bruce Berman

I miss you ASARCO.

You were texture. You were identity. You were muy macho. You had cajones. Your candy stripe shaft spewed your acids and we ran for cover. At least we were moving. You were not vanilla. You were not something else. You were, well, ASARCO, un madre. You were definitely not bourgeois, pro seguro. On dark nights, down on Paisano, huge trucks dumped your excrement and giant flames roared into the sky, lighting up I10 like a festive firecracker.

Now you are a bald pallet awaiting “The Grid.” They fiddle before they drop the hammer, just enough time for one to build trust in the untrustworthy. What should go on the ground that has your blood? Should it be a Western Town? Giddy up! Should it be an amusement park? Ice cream! Maybe it could be a “multi use” nothing (Ha! What else do you think they will do!)? We need more apartments and strip centers! Maybe we can just let UTEP spread its, its…well…it could just spread whatever it is that UTEP has.

I will politely clap. I am not lamenting the inevitable any more than I do on The Day Of the Dead.

Yes you were a cancer dispenser, a reminder of danger, vulnerability and of the sweat and blood of working men. Oh yeah, you were one bad hombre. Oh, and how the gerentes avoided your gaze. You were so not sheik. How could we sell this bipolar berg as the cultural and artistic epicenter of the great southwest with your giant schlong sticking into the sky, having intercourse with the eyes of every passerby? No no no, you had to go. You were so, well, nasty!

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border photography, el paso juarez border, Humanity, Mexico, Street Photography, US/Mexico Border

UNDEFINED PERSONALITIES AND THE BRIDGE

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Guy with a pipe, (á la Puente series), El Paso, April 2015
Guy with a pipe, (á la Puente series) El Paso, April 2015. Photograph ©BruceBerman2015

Text and Photo by Bruce Berman

 

No telling what and who will come over the Cordoba bridge that links El Paso, Texas with its sister city Juárez, Chihuahua.

In this case, crossing from south to north, was Spencer.

Pipe, a hat that said “F___ Off,” aged Doc Marten’s, punk rock labels every where,  he is as ecclectic as the border. In a strange way he, is the border: neither this or that, neither Mexican or American, neither barrier nor passageway.

A friend once called the border a metaphor for a person who has “an undefined personality.”

Looking at Spencer -and some others (in my mirror!)- I’m thinking it’s a place for very defined personalities.

The problem is that it’s really difficult to say exactly what they are.

Which brings us back to “undefined.”

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border photography, el paso juarez border, Juarez, Mexico

The Old New Juarez

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Juarez Loteria
Loteria de Juarez. Photograph ©BruceBerman2013

The New Juarez.

Everyone is talking about it. A new day, full of new promise. Many acquaintances tell me about all the new bars and cantinas. That Juarez will rise again.

This morning, Easter morning, two bodies were found hanging from a bridge in central Juarez. The victims were young, scruffy, boys with no names.

Hanging, like crucifixion, is a public and humiliating death. A death after death, the person shamed, rendered helpless, publicly. This is death with a message.

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

Whiffs: I Can See Tomorrow

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Mariachi, Juárez, 2002

There was a day when you could think of Juarez and think in color. I get whiffs of it lately, but one is so cognizant that under that shiny surface is a black and white heart that has been ripped open for all to see and it will take a long time fill with the energy and joy that was -and will be again- the hallmark of Ciudad Juarez. It will happen. It is happening now. A generation has now come that learned to live abajo, and carefully. There has been damage. No one can live under that cloud forever.

It’s nice to look back, now and again. But here, on the border, it has been years since people have allowed themselves to look forward.

There are “whiffs.”

\

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el paso juarez border, Juarez, Street Photography, The Street, US/Mexico Border

Unhappy Crowd With Tarot Cards

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The streets of Juárez abound with life again.

The “Cartel War” is over.

The war for justice and integrity in government, the war to develop a country that doesn’t need a drug transporting business as it’s second most important economy (after petroleum), is not over and won’t be for the foreseeable future.

On the streets of Juárez, there is a strange mix: Old people who couldn’t get out, the poor that couldn’t get out, the young that didn’t know there was anywhere to go to and babies!

There are a lot of babies in their teenage parents’ arms these days. In the streets in from of the Mercado Reforma there is this strange blend of young parents weighing babies in their arms, interspersed with the very old, interspersed with prostitutes, interspersed with an economy that is not longer threatened by the incursion of “the franchises.” Franchises bailed out of Juárez years ago, when the war began, in 2011.

This isn’t the Juárez of the glamour 1950s or the boom boom 1960s and their international factories, or of the up and down 1970s and 1980s with the rise of the licenciado middle class, nor of the “we are almost first world” Juárez of the 1990s and beyond.

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border photography, el paso juarez border, Humanity, Juarez, Love, Poverty, US/Mexico Border

La Familia Hernandez: A Short History Of The Causes Of War

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La Familia Hernandez, Juarez. ©BruceBerman1995

Commentary by the Editor

Juarez, Chih., Mex. — So how did this Cartel War begin and how does it end?
The Border Blog will not answer that today. We look for the things that make the heart tick and leave the fancy thinking to those that make these messes in the first place.
Roughly, for me, it began a long time ago, when the people who have  most of the marbles understood that they didn’t have to do a thing about bringing along another class of people who had hardly any marbles at all. Impunity. No apologies. In Juarez the maquila industry began when someone figured out that Labor was a cheap product that Mexico had a lot of and that it could be exchanged for some major profit. Of course nothing so crass as that was said. Rather, this was the bright new day that would lead to a burgeoning “middle class,” and bring everyone up from the bottom. So they said.  So the “development” of Juarez began. The powers that be brought willing companies looking for labor and they delivered “labor.” This labor, also known as the citizens of Mexico came from the far flung corners of Mexico. They had nothing else to do and would work at any price, went the theory. Everyone would be happy. You move here, we’ll give you subsistence (and societal dislocation), and we’ll go to the bank. Everyone will be happy.

Right?

When I first started photographing in the maquila factories of Juarez in the early 1980’s the salary in a maquila was $5 per day. Today it’s a little over $7. A full two dollar increase in 20 years. Imagine!

It wasn’t sustainable then and it isn’t now.
The promise of some kind of job, of rising above downright depraved poverty, was strong and people flocked to the border factories. First from Veracruz, then from Durango, then from Torreon and on and on.

If you were a Mexicano and wanted to improve your life without the terrible alternative of actually crossing the border and trying to make it work in El Norte, you headed to the maquilas of Juarez or Tijuana or Nuevo Laredo. If you made that journey you left your culture and customs behind. This was the brave new world.

Bienvenidos campesinos.

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Discussion of Documentary Photography, el paso juarez border, Humanity, Immigration, Juarez, Mexico, US/Mexico Border

The View South #421

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The View South #421

The View South #421, July 2014

Flags are down in Parque Chamizal. Wind must be up and hopefully a little rain. Just a whisper of a season change. Not yet. But not all that far off either. ‘ta bien. The View South. Days come and go. Then years. Then decades. Then…? I turned my back on the past a long time ago. People tell me that’s good. Bible says it too. Do they really mean it? 

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drug cartel, Journalism, Mexico, Violence

Twitter Tweets Police Kidnappers in Jalisco

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Editor’s Note:

Check this video out.
When Americans talk about the violence in Mexico they often view the situation through “western” eyes, thinking of Good Guys v. Bad Guys.
As this Al Jazeera report shows, the conflict is often between Bad Guys and Badder Guys and the public -the oppressed people of Mexico- have to stand on the sidelines, knowing but unable to alter the situation.
This video asks, Where do you turn when there is no one to turn to?

Commentary by Bruce Berman / Video by ©Al Jazeera 2014

There’s something happening in journalism.

When Aljazeera -who shouldn’t give a hoot about what’s happening in Mexico- publishes a well done piece on police kidnapping in Mexico, when Mexican journalists go ahead and publish their own work, under duress, knowing that to publish is to perish, and increasingly the xenophobic U.S. press dithers on entertainment and cheesy presidential inanities, we are talking about a new arrangement of the deck chairs on the the good ship journalism.

The truth is that most American newspapers and magazines aren’t undergoing the huge transformation they are experiencing in a vacuum. It’s not that hey are not irrelevant. They are merely irrelevant as the source for hard news (at a minimum) that relies on being the “go to” media.
For the most part, they are not that any longer.
If there is one source “out there,” it will be Tweeted or Posted on some social media site, within minutes, and then the fun begins. From there, people will Retweet it (RT), add links or complimentary sources and then the multiplier of social media begins. The question isn’t, Are you getting the news, but, rather, How much can you take?
Of course the eternal existential question remains, What happens when there is no longer a source of information (such as the New York Times. Sky News, CNN or Fox, i.e the “media giants?
This is not likely.

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

El Toro bi-plane, Juárez

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El Toro bi-plane on La Avenida, Juárez, 2008

Streets of Juárez are changing.

The murderous last few years are being replaced with growth. Planned growth.

The entire border is under development and there have been plans for decades that are now starting to happen.

It’s as if the violencia was a cleansing. Or was it a scrubbing?

In the “new” Juárez there won’t be any Bi planes. The era is gone. Anything from the 20th Century will become increasingly a rarity.

So be it. C’est la vie. Es la vida. What can one say?

Or was it a

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