Photo essay: The men who live in the canyon

Photographs and captions by David Bacon

San Diego, California -- March 31, 2008 -- Isaias, Alvino and Porfirio, three Mixtec men from Etla, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, live in the Los Peñasquitos canyon on the north edge of San Diego. They work as day labourers and farm workers -- wherever they can find work.

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Isaias stands next to the place where he sleeps.

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Some of the men have bicycles for transportation, and ride them in and out of the canyon.

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The trail up into Los Peñasquitos canyon begins under a city street. The settlements where the men sleep is in the trees and bushes below houses in a new suburban development.

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They have to hide their clothes and possessions, and leave them behind when they go looking for work every day.

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One worker looks over the food on a lunch truck, where men living in the canyon buy food.

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Juan, a Mixtec immigrant, works as a day labourer. ``There is no work in Oaxaca, where I come from'', he says.

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The other Mixtec men from Etla wait for work early each morning at the side of the road.

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

See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US, Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575

See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html

Coming in September, 2008, from Beacon Press: Illegal Workers -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants

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