“I travel to discover and discover when I travel.”
~ Morgan Smith
spain
When I was a teenager living on our ranch in western Colorado, I discovered a book named Cante Hondo ( Deep Song in English) and a record by a Spanish guitar player named Luis Maravilla. I still use this book to mark off places I want to visit and I eventually met Maravilla in his tiny guitar store on Calle Leon in Madrid some forty years later. We became friends in the last years of his life and I told him that he had been the major force in my love of flamenco music.
Since then I have probably made close to one hundred trips to Spain and also lived in Barcelona for four years. It’s the wandering around that is most important, the ability to stop the car when you see something or someone unusual, the fact that these casual encounters are often repeated on subsequent trips until a friendship emerges.
Near Marchena, Spain (pop. about 20,000), this farm gateway has always fascinated me and I want to drive up the dirt road and see what is on the other side of the hill. Unfortunately, on our last two trips, I have been unable to find it. A challenge for our next trip.
This gentle woman, Piedad Garrido lived in Baza, Spain ( pop. 20,000) and made her living by weaving esparto grass into baskets that she could sell. The photo on the wall is of her ( on the left) and her sister. It’s very common to see beautiful photos of family or weddings on the walls of very modest homes like hers.
Once I had a fantasy of buying a farm in Spain so we visited this farmer, Salvador Carrasco and his wife near Grazalema (pop. 2,000). They wanted to sell but I realized that I just wanted to take photos.
This is one of my earliest Spain photos taken in 1974 on the summit of a mountain named Ernio in the Basque country. Note the shoes on the sheepherder and his son. Note also the crosses in the background. There is some religious significance to this peak. The weather is usually foggy and as you near the summit you can see the glow of the crosses from the sun above.
Driving around. That’s a big part of being in Spain and that is how I spotted these three guys seated by the road in Arquillos, ( pop. 1,500). My goal has been to give them a print but I have never seen them at this corner again.
We were on a back road from Granada to the small town of Montefrio when we spotted this man with his shotgun and rabbit.
Mother and daughter flamenco dancers in the Sacromonte district, Granada.
Although neither a Catholic nor a churchgoer, I have been going to Semana Santa or Holy Week processions in Spain for more than twenty years. This Easter Sunday procession in Guadix ( pop. 18,000) is my favorite.
migrants
Up until 2018, my border focus had been on documenting and helping those who lived permanently on the Mexican side as well as the leaders of a number of humanitarian organizations there, mostly in the Juarez area as well as tiny Palomas some sixty miles to the west. In those earlier years the numbers of migrants crossing into the US had declined significantly but this began to change rapidly in 2018 as rhetoric heated up about the wall and whether or not to expand it.
My wife, Sherry and I began exploring the wall in the Anapra, Mexico/Sunland Park, New Mexico area, spotted migrants running across, talked to the militia in their last days there and began assisting La Casa del Migrante in Juárez and then Respettrans as well as the Tierra de Oro shelter in Palomas and Colores United in Deming, New Mexico.
The plight of these migrants is heartbreaking – the extraordinary violence in countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, the poverty and corruption and now the increasing impact of climate change on those in the agricultural sector. For the many women with small children who make these dangerous and costly journeys to our borders, asylum seems the logical and fair outcome. At the same time, I believe that we are the ones who have to control our borders.
These photos are a reflection of what we continue to see as we travel there.
These are little kids at the Respettrans shelter in Juárez. We visit almost monthly, bringing needed supplies and food, and always marvel at the warmth of the migrants who wait there for their initial asylum hearings.
This young woman and her brother were at La Casa del Migrante also in Juárez but because they were from Brazil and spoke only Portuguese, I was unable to learn their story.
“No human being is illegal” is what it says on the wall here at La Casa del Migrante, the largest and best established migrant shelter in Juárez.
As you can see, this family is exhausted and terrified. They have just arrived at La Casa del Migrante after a harrowing and expensive journey from their home country, Honduras and they have no idea what to expect next.
Michoacán is one of the most dangerous states in Mexico and for a number of months, migrants from there flooded downtown Juárez and lived on the streets in makeshift tents.
I spotted this desperate looking man from Nicaragua wandering the streets of Juárez, hoping for donations or food.
This little boy was at La Casa del Migrante, waiting while his mother registered their family.
A local man named Pedro would come down to the Michoacán encampment near the international bridge in Juárez and organize games to amuse these kids.
Fernanda was a young girl from Honduras waiting with her mother at Respettrans for their asylum hearing. There are always several mothers there who organize classes for the kids, with a special emphasis on teaching them some English. The kids love this and, like Fernanda, are highly motivated.
Early one morning I was near the wall between Anapra, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, heard a noise and suddenly these migrants came running by.
flamenco
I’m not a musical person, have never learned how to play an instrument and can’t sing. Nonetheless, flamenco music somehow struck me at an early age when I found the record of the guitar player, Luis Maravilla and used to play it over and over again in the summer evenings after work on our ranch in western Colorado. Here is something about this that cannot be explained because I actually met Luis in Madrid some forty years after first hearing his music and we became good friends in the last few years of his life.
Now photographing flamenco is more important to me than just watching; my goal is the unattainable one of taking the perfect photo. Fortunately we live in Santa Fe which, despite its small size, hosts some of the world’s finest flamenco artists These are of a particular group – Entreflamenco – the creation of Antonio Granjero from Jerez de la Frontera, Spain and his wife, Estefanía Ramirez. They are two of the hardest working, most creative people I know. I photograph them as a volunteer, hoping that these photos will help them promote their artistry.
Antonio Granjero dancing.
José Valle “Chuscales” is a world renown guitar player from the Sacromonte district of Granada, Spain but has lived in Santa Fe for many years.
Marina Elana is a dancer from San Francisco and frequently performs with Entreflamenco.
Two of her dancers.
Estefanía Ramirez, co-founder of Entreflamenco.
Miquela Wiegel who dances with Entreflamenco frequently but is also a medical student and headed for a medical career.
Miquela.
Estefanía with the singer, Momi de Cádiz who is from Cádiz, Spain
vision in action
Vision in Action is what I would call a mental asylum and it’s located in the desert on the west edge of Juárez, Mexico. I learned of it via Charles Bowden’s book, Murder City, Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields and first visited in February 2011.
I’ve always been involved in mental health issues and immediately knew that I would be documenting and assisting this project on into the future. In fact, since 2011, I have visited at least once a month ( with the exception for COVID) ever since, have written dozens of articles about it, its founder, José Antonio Galván and about many of the patients I have come to know. My wife, Sherry and I have also raised funds to renovate and expand the facilities with a special emphasis on the needs of the women patients
On one of my earliest visits, Pastor Galván said to me, “No son basura humana; son tesoros escondidos.” These are not human garbage, they are hidden treasures.”
It is this sense of humanity that has kept me involved.
“Blanca on the left is welcoming Marta, who was a new patient. Blanca cannot speak coherently but is always praying for others, even me.”
Cinthia Ramirez’s situation continues to haunt me because she was a talented attractive woman who simply could not deal with her drug problem. The police would bring her to Vision in Action so incoherent and aggressive that she would have to be placed in a cell. She would gradually recover, leave with high hopes but soon be back again and the cycle would start all over. Then she disappeared and I recently learned that she had been murdered.
Elia and Leticia Zoto are sisters who were sent to live with neighbors when their parents died. The neighbors chained them up and sold for sex until they were rescued by the police and taken to Vision in Action. Leticia is deceased now but Elia, although unable to talk coherently, has a knack for sensing when other patients are suffering and is always the first to console and calm them.
Leticia is with another woman patient next to the wall of the patio.
Miguel Angel was in this cell when I first met him and I was told that he was dangerous and that I shouldn’t get close to him. He changed, however, and we became friends and he would ask me about my favorite jazz musicians. Then he disappeared. Why would he escape after so many years at Vision in Action and with no place to go?
Román, this striking looking older man wanted to leave Vision n Action but it was impossible because he had no place to go, no family.
This is Elia Zoto with another woman patient named Lety. Neither can speak coherently but they somehow have their own bond of friendship.