Zeke, the Magazine of Documentary Photography, September 2025
https://www.zekemagazine.com/content/-farmworkers-and-deportees
These photographs document the work and unique culture of indigenous farmworkers from southern Mexico who are now employed in farms up and down the West Coast. The images also document a new environment in the context of the current wave of ICE raids and anti-immigrant hysteria. People arriving to work in U.S. fields come from communities that speak languages that long predate European colonization, and their dances, food, music and culture have deep historic roots. As those farmworker communities today resist the immigration raids and anti-immigrant hysteria spread by the Trump administration, this culture has become a means for survival.
The photographs begin with the work itself – the reason people have come and the way communities support themselves.This work also supports society as a whole – if farmworkers don’t work the rest of society doesn’t eat.
The documentation continues with photographs in which indigenous culture is evident. Some show the traditional dances in the festivals, called the guelaguetzas, that help keep indigenous culture alive. Because this display of culture during the current anti-immigrant repression is an act of defiance and courage, the participants call them guelaguetzas of resistance.
How people organize to resist and counter exploitation is also part of culture. The photographs show organizing in the fields and the targeting of one organizer by ICE who has been forced into self-deportation. Other images document angry anti-raid protests – people out in the streets, not cowering behind closed doors.
The final set of images shows one of the important consequences of the deportation machinery and violence. In Tijuana, deportees and violence victims live together on the street and in shelters – ripped from their lives at home, trying to survive as best they can.
This series of photographs is part of the documentation of work and migration I’ve worked on for over three decades. It has been published in magazines and newspapers, exhibited in several countries, and published in three books: Communities Without Borders, In the Fields of the North/En los campos del norte, and More Than a Wall/Mas que un muro.
MT VERNON, WA – 2022 -Farmworkers weed a field growing organic cabbage plants for seed at Morrison Farm. Because it is an organic field, the grower doesn’t use herbicide, and instead hires a small crew to weed the field before harvesting the seeds. Pablo Ramirez works in the crew.Copyright David Bacon
MT VERNON, WA – 2023 – Benito Lopz, Juana Sanchez and other members of Familias Unidas hold a meeting to decide if they will continue working in another field.
LOMPOC, CA – 2023 – A worker swings a bunch of stock flowers he’s cut onto a huge bunch in a field in Lompoc, near Santa Maria. A DoL job order for H-2A workers, by labor contractor Fresh Harvest, covers workers called ‘ Flower Harvester (Stock and Larkspur flower types).’ H-2A workers are recruited in Mexico for a few months work, and then have to leave the U.S.
SANTA MARIA, CA – 2012 – Sabina Cayetano, a Mixtec strawberry picker, and her son Aron and other members of her family sleep in one room in their Santa Maria apartment.
SANTA MARIA, CA – 2024 – Strawberry workers march through Santa Maria demanding a living wage Most are indigenous Mixtec migrants from Oaxaca and southern Mexico, but who now live in the U.S. The march passed in front of the Santa Maria Fairpark, where the strawberry festival was organized by growers to celebrate the beginning of the picking season. Few farmworker children can afford to go to the fair. This girl’s sign says ‘Salarios dignos por mis padres’ or ‘Dignified wages for my parents.’
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – Dancers from Las Azucenas de Maria, a group from the San Joaquin Valley, perform with the elaborate head dresses and flowing skirts of the chinas Oaxaqueñas, a dance from the chinas barrio of the city of Oaxaca de Juarez. Dancers from the many ethnic groups of Oaxaca, now living as migrants in the United States, came together at the annual festival of Oaxacan indigenous culture, the Guelagetza, which took place while the Trump administration attacked indigenous communities with immigration raids and threats. The event’s organizer called it a Guelaguetza de Resistencia, or a Guelaguetza in Resistance.
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – The Tiliche invites people to the Guelaguetza in Healdsburg
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – A group of young musicians came to the Guelaguetza from Half Moon Bay, three hours south of Healdsburg. For indigenous Mexican farmworkers, traveling long distances runs the risk of being stopped by immigration authorities and held for deportation.
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – A woman in the devil mask, a member of the Grupo Diablos Mixtecos de Oaxaca. In their informal network, members perform and share ideas at each others’ events, which has led to the incorporation of more women into the dance, and new styles of masks.
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – Food stands line the plaza during the Guelaguetza. The cook at this food stand has made Oaxacan mole from chocolate, sesame seeds, chile and other ingredients. Eating traditional food is another expression of determination to preserve indigenous culture in the face of the anti-immigrant wave of deportations.
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – A musician carries his huge bass drum keeping time for the dancers in the Calenda, a march around the town plaza that begins the Guelagetza.
HEALDSBURG, CA – 2025 – The oldest dancer, a member of Las Azucenas de Maria, at the annual festival of Oaxacan indigenous culture, the Guelagetza.
MT VERNON, WA – 2023 – Alfredo ‘Lelo’ Juarez with his partner and niece in a march of migrant farmworkers and their supporters, calling for unions and human rights. Lelo is a leader of the farmworker union, Familias Unidas por la Justicia. He was arrested in March by ICE, and held in the notorious detention center in Tacoma until July, when he agreed to return to Mexico in order to get out of the prison.
MT VERNON, WA – 2023 – Lelo speaks to a May Day march of migrant farmworkers and their supporters, calling for unions and human rights.
FT BRAGG, CA – 2025 – Immigrant families march through downtown Fort Bragg, protesting the wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration. Angry marchers carried signs with denunciations that declared “MAGA: Mexicans Ain’t Going Anywhere!”
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – 2025 – Miguel Molina is an immigrant rights activist and radio personality in Santa Rosa. He came to San Francisco to demonstrate against the Trump administration on Labor Day, in one of a thousand similar demonstrations around the country.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – 2025 – A domestic worker activist in the city’s Mission District demonstrated against the Trump administration on Labor Day.
SANTA MARIA, CA – 2025 – At the beginning of a march to protest immigration detentions, a volunteer passes out ‘red cards’ – part of a know-your-rights campaign to help immigrants facing immigration enforcement agents.
SANTA MARIA, CA – 2025 – A young woman holds a sign recognizing the work her parents have done as farmworkers. In this farmworker march many young people came to demand a living wage for their parents and to protest immigration raids. They marched for their parents who couldn’t come themselves because of threats from their employer and the risk of immigration raids.
OAKLAND, CA – 2025 – Community and immigrant rights organizations rally in Oakland’s Latino Fruitvale district protesting immigration raids and the use of the National Guard in Los Angeles. The sign carried by these young immigrant women says ‘For my father, who was deported. Watch me from Heaven, Papa. This is Our War!’
SANTA MARIA, CA – 2025 – A young boy from a Mixtec farmworker family walks in front of a banner with the hand-drawn portrait of Cesar Chavez, in a march of immigrant and farmworker youth and families.
SAN MATEO, CA – 2025 – Immigrant youth and families, and their supporters marched from San Mateo City Hall to San Francisco, protesting the wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration. Their purpose was to make the Mexican community visible in order to inspire a fightback to Trump fascism.
SAN MATEO, CA – 2025 – Youth marches like this are not the polite petitions of victims pleading for a softer repression. They are angry protests – people are out in the streets, not cowering behind closed doors. A common sign says “I drink my horchata warm because Fuck ICE!” Horchata is the iconic rice drink that has become a symbol of Mexican culture, and is usually served with ice.
SAN MATEO, CA – 2025 – Immigrant youth and families, and their supporters march from San Mateo City Hall to San Francisco, protesting the wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration.
SAN MATEO, CA – 2025 – Marches of iImmigrant youth and families met widespread community support. Here Victor Uno, a national officer of the electrical workers union, greeted a march with other union members. Uno’s family were interned during World War Two.
DELANO, CA – 2025 – Farmworkers and supporters demonstrated in Delano, where the United Farm Workers union was born, to celebrate the birthday of Cesar Chavez and protest the wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration. California Attorney General Rob Bonta marched with Lorena Gonzalez, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation and Yvonne Wheeler, President of the Los Angeles Labor Federation.
DELANO, CA – 2025 – Farmworkers protested the wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration. Protesters linked the hysteria against immigrants and indigenous people promoted by the Trump administration to the murder of Emily Pike, a 14-year old Apache girl in Arizona, one of many missing and murdered indigenous youth and women.
TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE, MEXICO – 2025 – Deportees and homeless people living on the street at a food distrubution in downtown Tijuana organized by World Food Kitchen.
TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE, MEXICO – 2025 – A deportee among the homeless people living on the street, lined up for food at a distribution in downtown Tijuana.
TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE, MEXICO – 2025 – A young woman rests on her bunk in a casa de refugio, or sanctuary home, for refugees and deportees from the U.S. This casa is administered by the Templo Embajadores de Jesus.
TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE, MEXICO – 2025 – A young disabled man and a group of children in casa de refugio, or sanctuary home, for refugees and deportees.
TIJUANA, BAJA CALIFORNIA NORTE, MEXICO – 2025 – At the casa de refugio administered by the Templo Embajadores de Jesus, Daniel Ortega and Irma Cortez find sanctuary from the violence of the cartels in their home state of Michoacan.
