FRESNO -- THE BEAUTY OF CHANGING CULTURE AND PAIN OF HOMELESSNESS Photoessay by David Bacon
FRESNO, CA - 29SEPTEMBER13 - Fresno is a city with big contradictions. It is home to thousands of indigenous migrants from Oaxaca and southern Mexico, and hosts one of the oldest guelaguetza dance festivals in California. The festival celebrates the food, crafts, music and culture of Mixtec, Zapotec, Triqui and other indigenous Mexicans. There are so many migrants from Oaxaca living in California that there are at least seven guelaguetzas held throughout the state every year. But Fresno also has one of the largest populations of homeless people, per capita, of any city in California. People sleep under freeways, next to railroad tracks, and out in the open in many neighborhoods. Many camps and impromptu homes are hidden behind bushes and boards, and homeless Fresno residents say the police come down on them heavily, arresting them and confiscating their shopping carts and belongings. Outside the city, some ranchers and valley residents are proponents of extreme political conservatism. A few areas in the San Joaquin Valley continue to elect very rightwing representatives to Congress, despite a growing change in California's population demographics. Indigenous Mexican migrant families from Oaxaca at the annual festival of Oaxacan indigenous dance, food and culture, the Guelagetza. A mother gives her daughter a bite of her tlayuda, a large tortilla filled with beans, meat and cabbage, Oaxacan style. A dancer with the Ballet Folklorico Nueva Antequera performs in the Guelagetza in Fresno, one of many places in California where Oaxacans organize the festival every year. The Grupo Folklorico Donaji dances the jarabe from Ejutla, a town in Oaxaca. The Grupo Folklorico Donaji includes young people and children, who learn the dances of the many ethnic groups of Oaxaca, now living as migrants in the United States. A shopping cart with the possessions of a homeless man next to the railroad tracks and irrigation canal near the Fresno airport. Adam is a homeless man who lives in a tent next to the railroad tracks and irrigation canal near the airport. He takes care of a dog, Bullet, whose owner was picked up for being homeless and has been in jail for a week and a half. Adam, a homeless man, hopes to go to Visalia, another city in the San Joaquin Valley, and get a job as a security guard. Steve is a homeless man who keeps his possessions in a shopping cart, and pushes it down the street near the irrigation canal and the airport. Outside of Fresno is the Tea Party Junkyard, a pile of discarded farm equipment with lots of flags and huge placards with rightwing slogans. This one says, "Roses are red, violets are blue, [President] Obama's a commie, [San Francisco Congresswoman] Pelosi is too." Interviews with David Bacon about his new book, The Right to Stay Home: KPFK - Uprisings with Sonali Kohatkar http://uprisingradio.org/home/2013/09/27/the-right-to-stay-home-how-us-policy-drives-mexican-migration/ KPFA - Upfront with Brian Edwards Tiekert https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/david-bacon-on-upfront-9-20 TruthOut with Mark Karlin http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18972-mexican-communities-resist-environmentally-destructive-canadian-mining-companies Books by David Bacon THE RIGHT TO STAY HOME: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration Just published by Beacon Press Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008) Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008 http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002 Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575 The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org -- __________________________________ David Bacon, Photographs and Stories http://dbacon.igc.org __________________________________ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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