David Bacon: Mixtecs in Watsonville

David Bacon, author and photographer (and regular contributor to the ImmigrtaionProf blog, has supplied this new set of photos with his narrative:

WATSONVILLE, CA Indigenous Mixtec migrants from San Martin Peras in the Mexican state of Oaxaca live in and near Watsonville, and work in the strawberry fields.

Twelve members of the family of Margarito Salvador live in a two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town. In a nearby apartment, Saturnina Cervantes youngest daughter helps her mother sort and fold used clothes for her family.

Alfredo Lopez and his family live in Pajaro, across the river from Watsonville. He has three daughters - Esperanza, Ofelia and Sylvia Lopez, his youngest daughter. In a colonia not far from there, a Mixtec family sleeps and cooks in a trailer.

In the same colonia Liba Ramirez lives with her husband Israel in a converted garage, where she makes tortillas in their tiny kitchen. She is several months pregnant.

 

 

 

 

 

For more articles and images on immigration, see http://dbacon.igc.org/Imgrants/imgrants.htm

KJ