- 06.29.17
These Photos Take You Into The Makeshift Community Pressed Against The Border Wall
Where there is already a border between the U.S. and Mexico, a community has formed of people who are stuck in a limbo between two places.
Donald Trump’s great, tremendous border wall might not have been built yet, but about 650 miles worth of “wall,” already exists, a vestige of border-control projects from earlier administrations. But instead of being simply a symbol of isolation, the wall has been altered by its environment: It’s become a home for many people who have washed up against it.
A new series from Tokyo-based photographer James Whitlow Delano captures this challenging reality. What you’ll see is as much a story about poverty as it is one of perseverance, a testament to the hardships of the human condition, and evidence of our resilience.
In 2016, he was in Mexico photographing the border, trying to answer the question of what it’s like to have a neighbor (with whom you are at peace) erecting a barrier between you. “In the process of making that story,” he tells Fast Company, “I happened upon several families whose houses or shelters were actually backed up against the wall itself, but I did not have time to explore their lives further. So I said, ‘I’m going to do the story I should have done in the first place,’ then went back and sought out these people.”
Along the wall, Delano met a woman who had lived in the U.S. for 20 years with her Cuban husband. She ran a taco stand and wouldn’t let Delano pay for his meal. He met a homeless man 1,600 miles from his previous life in the state of Michoacán, near Mexico City. Delano also ran into a surprising number of Haitians who were stuck in Tijuana, trying to scrape together a living with limited Spanish. Just about everyone living along the wall does so without plumbing, and electricity is ripped from the power grid illegally.
For others in town, like two young boys Delano snapped, the view of the border wall, and the United States in the distance, is all they’ve ever known. They are very much at home there, and the wall they were perched on was just another part of their playground. The boys’ family, three generations and six kids in all, is there for the long haul.
They live in a ramshackle house that sits atop a mound of dirt and stone.
The son-in-law, Jesús, repairs cars during the day. He still has family in the United States, near Seattle, which explains the Seahawks tattoo on his forearm, but now has Canada in his dreams. Jesús was deported for felony domestic abuse. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the U.S., according to 40 years or research.
Since Trump signed two executive orders on immigration and border security, not only have arrests of suspected undocumented workers jumped 38%, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection has caught 47% fewer people trying to cross into America without documentation.
“I wanted this to be a human story. I want people in the U.S. or Europe to understand the kinds of pressures people are under–financial pressures, family pressures,” the photographer tells Fast Company. “I want people to understand that we’re dealing with decent people who, just by fate of birth, have this pressure on them that we most of us don’t have.
“What I don’t want is to encourage anybody to build the wall, because that’s ridiculous.”
All Photos Copyright © 2017 by James Whitlow Delano. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
