Resist

Steven St. John

Repeat offenders, Columbus New Mexico

Steven St. John (b. 1977) worked as an assistant picture editor and staff photographer at his home town newspaper, The Albuquerque Tribune until it ceased publication in 2008. His work has been recognized multiple times by such organizations as the National Press Photographers Association, Pictures of the Year International, the Associated Press, and the Scripps Journalism Awards. In July of 2008, he moved to Guatemala to study Spanish while pursuing personal projects and freelance opportunities in Latin America. His Spanish is OK, but he misses New Mexico green chile and his mom.

About the Photograph:

“This photo comes from a reportage I worked on about the situation along the U.S.-Mexican border. The processing station in Columbus is really just a double-wide trailer in the desert, it’s most prominent feature the enormous framed American flag. I had photographed larger groups of immigrants in the area, but came back later to find this Guatemalan mother and her 10-year-old daughter sitting alone awaiting processing. Border patrol officials classified them as repeat offender OTM’s (other than Mexican) after they were caught trying to cross for the second time. When the reporter I worked with on the series, told me that they were from Guatemala, I tried to connect with them up saying I had visited their country. The mothers response was that so many people travel to her county, she didn’t understand why she isn’t allowed into mine. Now, just a few years later, I’m living in Guatemala documenting the conditions of poverty that they were trying to flee.”

From: http://www.resistnetwork.com/
on 09/01/09 | Read More

Scarecrow Hacking at the Border

Activists in Tucson, Arizona have been placing life-sized cutouts of Maricopa County’s insidiously regressive anti-immigrant law enforcement officials around town on street corners and at intersections, including one of the chief of armed despicability himself, America’s self-described “toughest sheriff” Joe Arpaio, and another of a Border Patrol agent, presumed to depict Nicholas Corbett, who just recently faced a hung trial for the second time after being charged with the murder of Mexican immigrant Francisco Dominguez in January of 2007.

From: Subtopia
by noreply@blogger.com (Bryan Finoki) on 13/11/08 | Read More

Trainers for border crossers

Judi Werthein has designed a special “crossing trainer” to help illegal immigrants cross the border from Mexico to the US.

The shoes are named Brincos for the Spanish verb “brincar,” which means “to jump” —as in, across the border. They includes a compass, a flashlight (people usually cross at night.) The pocket in the tongue hides money or some Tylenol painkillers because many people get injured during crossing.

Illegal immigrants’ primary mode of transportation is their feet. “If they go through the sierra, they walk eight hours. Their feet get hurt. There’s a lot of stones and there are snakes, tarantulas. So that’s why it is a little boot,” Werthein says. The Brinco is an ankle-high trainer in green, red, and white - the colors of the Mexican flag. An Aztec eagle is embroidered on the heel. On the toe is the American eagle found on the US quarter, to represent the American dream the migrants are chasing. And on the back ankle, a drawing of Mexico’s patron saint of migrants. A map - printed on the shoe’s removable insole - shows the most popular illegal routes from Tijuana into San Diego.

The artist first passed out trainers for free to migrants, then sold limited edition of them at a hip store in San Diego for $215.

Only 1,000 pairs of the sneakers have been manufactured — in China, for $17 each to underscore the tensions sparked by the global spread and mobility of the maquiladora.

Part of the InSite_05 commissions.

Background information from BBC news, Washington Post. Images.

From: http://www.resistnetwork.com/
on 04/12/08 | Read More

Art that helps immigrants cross the border between Mexico and the United States. ... click here

Ricardo Dominguez calls himself an “artivist.” Half political activism and half art, Ricardo’s projects blur the boundaries between the aesthetic and the political. “We always view our activism within the frame of art and the poetic,” said Ricardo. Ricardo was part of a team that was recently awarded the Transnational Communities Award for a Transborder Immigrant Tool that uses GPS-enabled mobile phones to help immigrants crossing the border between Mexico and the United States.

From: http://www.resistnetwork.com/
on 21/11/08 | Read More

‹ First 12 Last ›