
By Alberto del Castillo Troncoso
Afterword to the book, More Than a Wall/Mas que un muro, by David Bacon
Ojarasca, supplement to La Jornada, Mexico CIty, August 2023
Richmond, California – 2018
Lourdes Barraza y una de sus hijas, afuera del Centro de Detención del Condado Oeste, en donde su esposo Fernando estaba detenido para ser deportado.
Documentary photography occupies a very important place in the history of photography. Toward the end of the 19th century, Jacob Riis (How the Other Half Lives) showed the terrible living conditions of immigrants and at the beginning of the 20th century Lewis Hine depicted child exploitation in the United States-presumably the land of progress and prosperity. Documentary photographers have long been aware of the enormous contribution the language of images can make when placed in the public eye.
David Bacon has worked with images as vehicles for consciousness in his effort to show the working conditions and exploitation of immigrants and other groups in the United States and Mexico since the mid-1980s. This determination is part of his activism and work in defense of labor rights on both sides of the border. Through the solidarity he has created with workers and migrants, he has been able to build the empathy necessary to carry out his work, which is unique for the respect and closeness he achieves with these groups, his affirmation of their political struggles and personal identities and his going beyond the merely descriptive record of their lives to produce images and essays of a great aesthetic and documentary richness.
This book illustrates how Bacon, in his portrayal of the border over more than three decades, incorporates not just the physical presence of migrants but also their voices. Indeed, this intimate dialogue between photography and oral history is one of the most significant elements of his work, giving him a personal signature that distinguishes him from others. He is an artist committed to political activism who creates a harmonious relationship between the images and the texts he writes, which have sometimes been published as pieces of photojournalism, but which also culminated in photographic books and exhibitions.
The 413 images published in this book, made between 1985 and 2018, are the result of an intense process of review and editing by the author from a universe of almost 20,000 images. The photographs chosen are intertwined with a visual narrative that leaves no room for anonymity as it chronicles a succession of real conditions in people’s lives, turning them into active subjects who defy oppression and are not merely passive victims of circumstances and repression. The photos focus on human beings, with first and last names, who generally are invisibilized by the powerful and the media but who in these pages reclaim their voice and intimacy as their unique and distinctive features are put on display.
This book shows the influence of classic documentary photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Eugene Smith, who chronicled the poverty of segments of the American population in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Collectively they created one of the most influential portrait galleries in the history of documentary photography. Other recognizable influences are the work of the German American couple Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel from the 1930s into the 1960s, as well as more contemporary photographers such as Milton Rogovin, who documented several working-class communities in New York state, and Don Bartletti and his important photojournalistic record of the border. Bacon’s work also has echoes and resonances from the work of great Mexican documentary photographers such as Tina Modotti, Elsa Medina, Eniac Martínez, Marco Antonio Cruz, Antonio Turok, and Pedro Valtierra, perceptive professionals who over the decades have captured both the identity and the concrete circumstances surrounding the lives and deaths of migrants and their families, as well as other social movements.
Bacon’s images, like those of these photographers, are not limited to being social commentary. His photos use framing and composition to create a distinctive aesthetic, sometimes achieved with telephoto shots and others with a wide-angle lens. “I am a man of extremes,” says Bacon with irony in an interview with the author of this epilogue, showing a personal interpretation of reality that identifies him as a creator with a particular vision of the world building his own universe.
This aesthetic is the result of moving beyond the idea of a photo archive to other approaches, such as exhibitions and the publication of photo books, which involve patient editing and a selection of themes for each specific project. This allows us to put aside the photographs considered the result of “circumstance”-a product of the Bressonian “decisive moment”-and instead investigate and explore the world of processes and examine the thinking that drives the creator’s work, to try to understand his aim and intent.
In this particular journey, the photographer looks at both sides of the border and collects the life stories of immigrants as well as their community and work experiences, crossed as they are by important struggles of resistance we learn about throughout the book. One such case is that of Gervasio Peña, from the town of Santiago Naranjas in the Oaxacan Mixteca, who crossed the border in 1986 when he was 18 years old only to discover that in the California towns of Graton and Forestville the care and preservation of fruit were valued more than the workers’ own lives. Or the story of Maria Pozar, a Purépecha immigrant who lives with her daughters Jacqueline and Leslie in North Shore along the Salton Sea. The family hugs and smiles despite the constant dust storms intermixed with fertilizers and pollution that provoke constant nosebleeds and other bodily ailments.
The visual narrative of this book gives context to these stories and many others. Still, it does much more than simply illustrate them as it creates its own environment and constructs a variety of social imaginaries that allow other interpretations of the border and migration.
Such is the case of the series of photographs dedicated to the wall, which show the imposing metal security fence cutting the frames horizontally, achieving a sensation of movement through the interplay of contrast, light, and shadows, being crossed above or below ground by migrants, or flowing into the Pacific Ocean, near Tijuana, and serving as backdrop for all sorts of interventions and appropriations of high symbolic content. Some of the images depict the crosses and floral offerings installed in homage to and remembrance of the dead, as seen in the portrait of Ramsés Barrón-Torres, a young man of 17 killed by the Border Patrol in Mexican territory, near Nogales, Sonora; other photos show the number sequences used by US agents to control and identify the sections and areas where people will try to cross; and then there are the evocative signs and graffiti that ironically allude to the so-called American dream and allow us to rethink its meaning with disturbing phrases such as “This is where dreams turn into nightmares.”
An important theme is that of deportees and their families. These are the portraits of people who have been expelled from the United States and who are photographed on the Mexican side of the border, in their new life circumstances, living in modest encampments, hotels, and shelters, if not wandering the streets of cities in northern Mexico, facing, day after day, the precariousness of their surroundings, including great vulnerability to poverty and violence.
Tragedy is seen through individual narratives, with subjects identified by their full names. Because of how people’s faces and body language are captured as well as the outstanding quality of the photos, some of these images-such as the portrait of Lourdes Barraza and her daughter and those of Mario and Liliana, all at the detention center in Richmond, California-can almost be seen as studio portraits, designed and taken with a rigorous control over light, speed, and exposure. However, they actually were produced as events were taking place in detention centers, thus demonstrating the mastery acquired by the author over decades and his ability to create the emotional ties and empathy to create images with remarkable human depth and aesthetic content. These images could be hung on the walls of any museum, but in this case are a form of expression of photography at the service of a political cause.
This is no minor point. As noted above, these elements help create the conditions for photographic works that show a deep sense of respect that is reflected in the high quality of the resulting images. Like Nacho López and Mariana Yampolsky, Bacon is able to overcome stereotypes, in this case those that surround migration, and brings us closer to the true human face of migrants.
The photographer says these types of images are intended to document not only the real struggles of people, but to be used in other places and contexts to inspire others in organizing their own efforts to confront and try to halt this competitive, unequal, and inhumane system in a spirit of solidarity.
The series of close-ups of migrants’ faces and hands on both sides of the border deserves special attention. Some of these photographs were captured through the holes and interstices of the same wall that separates the two countries, harnessing the contrast between the interlaced bars of the fence and the faces and gestures of people and families. Such was the case of Catalina Céspedes, who made a long journey from Santa Monica, Cohetzala, in the state of Puebla, to Tijuana just to be able touch the body of her daughter Florita, as was that of Adriana Arzola, who brought her new baby, Nayeli, so her family on the American side could meet and hug her for the first time.
And simply showing the cracked hands of workers demonstrates the many years of exploitation they have undergone, but also their struggle and dignity. Such was the case of the inhabitants of the Desierto del Diablo in Sonora; of María Martínez and Alfredo Murrieta, the latter a descendant of the legendary bandit Joaquín Murrieta, who tried to oppose the dispossession of California by the U.S. invaders in 1848; and the images of Clifford Brumley in the Imperial Valley, showing the loss of parts of two fingers and a thumb to frostbite one winter. The absence of faces and the close-up framing of hands renew the traditional canons of portraiture, very much in the style of the 1930s avant-garde, creating documentary photographs that occupy an important place in the history of the medium.
These photos-which are emotionally and politically charged-all showcase the testimonial nature of important moments in a powerful micro-history that otherwise would not have the same kind of impact in the public square.
Such images showcase political situations with significant symbolic power, thus revealing the nature of migration in recent history as a space of interchange involving political struggle. Examples of this include the homage paid in Tijuana to the 43 students who disappeared from the Ayotzinapa Normal School in Guerrero; the demonstration in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, in solidarity with the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca in 2006; the solidarity demonstrations in a small community of Tamaulipas in support of the Zapatista National Liberation Army; and the images of protests in Gómez Palacio, Durango, in support of the struggle of mothers and relatives of the disappeared women of Ciudad Juárez.
A key part of this photographer’s quest is achieved by setting his activist’s gaze to explore and question the multiple realities of Mexico. Again, these are not the kinds of snapshots you get in passing, but rather thought-out narratives telling stories that would be unimaginable without the context of the author’s political work, where he has fostered prior contacts with people to gain their trust and confidence. Such is the case of Francisco Ortiz’s family, whom we meet during various visits with his children, and his grandmother Isabel-the matriarch of the family-in an extraordinary portrait that captures her powerful face, lined with wrinkles and fixed with a look of sadness that confronts us all. Then there is Francisco himself, who poses with one of his children inside the tiny room that makes up his home, both sitting on their beds, staring at the photographer, next to the stove and the rest of the run-down furniture. There also is the photo essay on the strike by workers of the Han Young maquiladora, who are seen from various angles fighting to organize an independent union, and the grim portraits of the so-called “special forces,” repressive groups that provide illegal protection to the authorities to break the strike with absolute impunity.
A thought-provoking image distills this story. Miguel Ángel Solórzano, one of the young strikers, stands extending his thin arms and hands forward as if they were pincers of a broken machine. The caption informs us that he suffered several fractures in his right arm in a workplace accident and that he was nevertheless forced to return to work well before he should have. The traditional conventions of the genre of this kind of photo are transformed by the power and aim of this masterful portrait, turning it into what Didi Huberman calls a “confronting” image-that is, a photograph that troubles and challenges us.
One of the greatest accomplishments of this book is its reinvigoration of the photography of indigenous people. Such photography, especially in the Mexican case, has often victimized indigenous groups and objectified them as passive subjects incapable of changing their conditions. Bacon’s vision is exemplified by the case of María Ortiz’s family, Triqui migrants from the Mixteca Oaxaqueña, who confront injustices in the San Quintín Valley in Baja California and organize a strike using spaces such as that provided by the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (Frente Indígena de Organizaciones Binacionales). Bacon’s lens follows them in solidarity on the streets, in the fields, and at the negotiation tables. He also accompanies them inside their homes and gives us details of their daily lives. The most important sign of this intimacy is found in a poetic image in which, next to a frying pan and spoons that hang from a modest wooden wall, you can see some of the love poems family members have written by hand. One of them tenderly says, “Where do you come from? From heaven. And who are you looking for? For my sorrows. And what do you bring? I bring solace. And what is your name? Love.”
Thus, politics and daily life are seen in a harmonious manner in the set of images making up this part of the photographic essay, showing Triqui men and women fighting for their dignity, disregarding the stereotypes that conventional photography of indigenous people has used to objectify them for at least a century and a half.
One more genre reshaped by the author’s lens is the landscape portrait, particularly in the case of the Salton Sea, whose waters continue to recede. The lake, fed by agricultural runoff, has high salinity and is polluted with fertilizers and other chemicals. This means that a beach that once housed trees and welcomed birds from elsewhere has turned into a desert of hard, cracked sand. Bacon’s raw images of this place, with close-ups of dead fish that look like fossils trapped in the ground, ironically seem to question the conventional rules of landscape portraiture and show the viewer a milieu where places are devastated by the pollution caused by the same unjust and inequitable system that causes thousands of human beings to live in misery. True to his book’s goals to focus on the portrayal of human beings, the photographer presents a series of images of various people who inhabit the area and who have had to deal with the effects of this pollution. These images, rather than just depicting people suffering the effects of this disaster, instead show humans who are battling, and who are living life and enjoying their family ties and affections, as they confront an aggressive and daunting environment.
As Bacon himself points out in this book, the uniqueness of these images is what enables their universality. Migrants’ and workers’ particular approach to the resistance struggle and dignity under very specific circumstances allows us to interpret these images differently and recognize them as part a global puzzle that includes other conflictive places, from the migration of people in Libya and Honduras to the increasingly dangerous journey to cross from Africa to Europe through the border of death that the Mediterranean Sea has become.
This overview has suggested possible interpretations of a complex photographic undertaking, one encompassing the decades of experience of an artist with a clear professional and political commitment who has employed a diversity of angles and approaches, ranging from portraiture to landscapes, using various genres and themes that, above all, forcefully document the enormous transformative power of images.