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.

David Bacon

David Bacon is a photographer based in Oakland and Berkeley, California.  He is the author of several books about migration:  The Children of NAFTA (University of California Press, 2004), Communities Without Borders (ILR/Cornell University Press, 2006), Illegal People – How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008), and The Right to Stay Home (Beacon Press, 2013).  His latest book of photographs and interviews with farm workers, In the Fields of the North, will be published in December by the Colegio de la Frontera Norte.

David Bacon was a factory worker and union organizer for two decades with the United Farm Workers, the International Ladies Garment Workers, and other unions. Today he documents the changing conditions in the workforce, the impact of the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights.

David Bacon's photography has been exhibited widely in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe, including at the Oakland Museum of California; University of California in Berkeley, Merced and Los Angeles; the National Civil Rights Museum; DeSaisset Museum; Irene Carlson Gallery of Photography; Queens College; the Church Center of the United Nations; the Museum of Mexico City; the National Autonomous University of Mexico; IG Metall Galerie in Frankfurt; Galerie Unterhaus in Passau; and KulturAXE in Vienna.

His articles and photoessays have been published in Afterimage, Al Jazeera America, The Nation, The Progressive, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Contexts and Gastronomica among other media. His photography and journalism have received the Max Steinbock Award, Project Censored Award, Los Angeles Press Club Award, the East Bay Press Association Award, New America Media Award, and the Domingo Ulloa Cultural Award.  As a photojournalist, David Bacon has been documenting through photographs and stories the lives of farm workers since 1988. His work has been supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, The California Endowment, and the California Council for the Humanities.