David Bacon: Good Friday in a Oaxacan Colonia in Caruthers, California (Near Fresno)

CARUTHERS, CA – 10APRIL09 – In a tiny colonia, or settlement, outside Caruthers, in the grape fields west of Fresno, California, indigenous Mixtec migrants from Oaxaca celebrate Good Friday. The community walks from one to another of the Stations of the Cross, the Catholic ritual remembering the crucifixion of Christ. Their ritual also speaks of the forced migration from Oaxaca, being treated as “illegal,” and of immigration raids and poverty.

Text and pictures by DAVID BACON.

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

From Beacon Press: Illegal People — How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002

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

David Bacon, Photographs and Stories http://dbacon.igc.org

KJ