Juarez is waiting for you’: Violent city tries tourism
Despite a rise in killings, the Mexican city has taken on a daunting task – to reinvent itself as a tourist destination. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico – In the early 1970s, Richard Wright, a native of El Paso, Texas, began crossing the then porous US-Mexico border into the northern Mexican community of Ciudad Juarez – a place once deeply connected to his home city and yet simultaneously worlds apart.
Voices from the border: Opposing Trump’s wall
On Wednesday, John F Kelly, the head of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the department tasked with implementing President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, laid out the administration’s vision before Congress. It included increasing vetting procedures for foreign nationals and, most pressingly, according to the newly appointed Kelly, fixing the “gaping wound” he considers to be the US-Mexico border.
Oaxaca: Mourning those killed during teacher protests
In Oaxaca, the battle over education – and the view of Mexico it presents – has often turned violent. Oaxaca, Mexico – It is November 2, the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and the family of Anselmo Cruz Aquino has gathered by a cross on a roadside in Nochixtlan , Oaxaca. It marks the spot where the 33-year-old was shot and killed last summer during a clash between the federal police and a dissident wing of the Mexican teachers’ union, the National Coordinator of Education Workers, or CNTE.
US immigration policy: To build walls or bridges?
As construction of the border wall continues, so does the flow of undocumented migrants hoping for a better life. On the night of Halloween in 1999, Carmen Caballero, who was then eight, and her three-year-old sister put on witches’ costumes and met their aunt for a trick-or-treat excursion in their native city of Juarez, Mexico. They piled into their aunt’s car and left. When the girls got out, they were in El Paso, Texas.
Is this the end of prison for profit in the US?
The decline and growth of the private prison industry in the United States. Last August the US Department of Justice released a statement that they would begin the process of phasing out private prison contracts in federal prisons, some 30 years after the Bureau of Prisons began its experiment contracting beds to for-profit facilities.
Aliens on the mind: Roswell and the UFO phenomenon
New Mexico commemorates the anniversary of a supposed alien spacecraft crash in 1947 and an alleged government cover-up. Roswell, New Mexico – Each summer, thousands of people descend upon the town of Roswell, New Mexico, for the annual UFO Festival, an event commemorating the anniversary of a supposed alien spacecraft crash and government cover-up that occurred nearby in the summer of 1947.
Inside a Mayan healing ceremony
Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala – At the Cofradia de Conception in Santiago Atitlan, Juan Ramirez, 28, sits pensively on a wooden bench, his outstretched leg held gently by Don Juan Pacach, a Mayan priest and bonesetter.
The windowless room – part Catholic shrine, part traditional Mayan healing space – is set back from a narrow unmarked street up a hill in this lakeside Mayan village.
The ghosts of New Mexico’s abandoned mining towns
New Mexico, US – During the mining boom of the 19th century in New Mexico, thousands migrated to remote parts of the state, establishing towns to exploit the region’s rich mineral wealth.
By the late 1800s and early 1900s communities such as Kelly, Dawson, Madrid, Pinos Altos, Golden and Hanover/Fierro proliferated throughout the state, providing the silver, gold, lead, coal and zinc that helped to fuel the industrial western expansion taking place in America. These boom towns, composed of a diverse mix of foreigners, would fundamentally change the demographic character of the state, arising from the dust and often abandoned in equal haste.
The gold mining ghost towns of the US
New Mexico, US – Outside Tony’s Rock Shop in the sleepy town of Magdalena, in New Mexico, Ben Valentino Otero stands amid a menagerie of animal statues, two wooden eagles, a merry-go-round horse, a metal sphinx and a variety of obscure rocks. “Which is your favourite?” asks Ben, an avid rock collector and descendant of miners who once worked the hills above town. His shop, one of the few remaining in Magdalena, is a kind of museum to the nearby mountains and the men who mined them.
Old Main prison: A tour through American prison history
New Mexico, US – Twenty-four kilometres south of Santa Fe, the now defunct Penitentiary of New Mexico, or “Old Main”, sits in managed decay, its imposing exterior rising above the plains that stretch southeastwards from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which loom in the background of the state’s capital city.It was here, on the early morning of February 2, 1980, that a group of inmates from an overcrowded dormitory overpowered guards during the nightly headcount, setting in motion one of the…