https://donbartlettiphotography.com/home daily 1.0 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538517673503-JV1R78HEF0UK3YRYUTQV/Bartletti_HOME_web_03.jpg Home - The Roads Most Traveled learn more https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events daily 0.75 2021-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539293330000-KKYUBLDOFATNVHP0FTI5/White.jpg News & Events https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/2021/10/15/borderline-anarchy monthly 0.5 2021-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1634320210627-JIL8JVABT00NEW1SRR5P/Web_Don-Bartletti-BORDER_Arizona_2021.jpg News & Events - Borderline Anarchy - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/2018/10/11/new-mexico-public-lectures monthly 0.5 2021-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1578523526149-JCZ4F0C2EG547KRO9KNY/Bartletti_Lecture_Silver_City_Web_2019.jpg News & Events - New Mexico Public Lecture https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/2019/1/7/40-years-on-the-border-the-story-remains-the-same monthly 0.5 2021-10-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1546908838411-5I6OEA8LTWDW1VMB5DSP/DonBartletti_UT.jpg News & Events - The Story Remains The Same https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/2018/10/11/30-years-on-the-usmexico-border-then-and-now-on-exhibit monthly 0.5 2019-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539291911935-3KEQMTXRIL3UYK9JAHCO/30-Years-on-The-Border_Old_Print_2018.jpg News & Events - 30 Years on The U.S./Mexico Border - Then and Now on Exhibit Click on image to enlarge it https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539291966348-P98TV3T1N3XZPGOSAYCB/30-Years-on-The-Border_Diptychs_Delivered_2018.jpg News & Events - 30 Years on The U.S./Mexico Border - Then and Now on Exhibit https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539291865822-Z331G482KL3H8UUVMD31/30-Years-on-The-Border_Diptych_Soccer_Field_2018.jpg News & Events - 30 Years on The U.S./Mexico Border - Then and Now on Exhibit https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/category/Exhibit monthly 0.5 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/category/News monthly 0.5 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/category/Immigration monthly 0.5 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/news-and-events/category/Lectures monthly 0.5 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/between-two-worlds4 daily 0.75 2018-09-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886927240-VBFZBGG58YIPDRD8A18M/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_01.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Boundary of the United States OCTOBER 9, 1979. IMPERIAL BEACH, CA. " People in Playas de Tijuana, Mexico look through the border fence an ecumenical group conducting a ceremony in Friendship Park. The scene was peaceful and calm and I didn't see anyone slip through the very porous fence line. Erected in the mid 1800's, this solid marble obelisk 200 yards from the Pacific Ocean is the western most of 258 monuments that mark the nearly 2,000 mile boundary of the United States and Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886927283-V9ZRGKZMZ1AZIVL7YKAW/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_02.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Heavy Traffic on the Border JUNE 25, 1989. SAN YSIDRO, CA. In this late afternoon view through a 1200mm telephoto lens, a U.S. Border Patrol Bronco can be seen kicking up a cloud of dust in the Tijuana River Valley where approximately 375 people wait on the river levees for the right moment to cross into the United States. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886933566-E21M0U37F5RDVAS8WFRO/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_03.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Pressure from the South TIJUANA, MEXICO. JUNE 25, 1990. On a hill above the distant Tijuana River Valley, dozens of people crowd against the Mexican side of the 10-ft-high chain-link border fence. A handful of young men face off with U.S. Border Patrol agents on the California side. By nightfall hundreds will scale the fence or crawl through holes and into the United States. The sheer number of illegal immigrants routinely overwhelms attempts at enforcement. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886932879-OFRHMIEFR07Y4X4HIB41/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_04.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - International Fast Food JUNE 6, 1989. SAN YSIDRO, CA. Francisca Gutierrez, right, passes hot chicken and beans from her makeshift outdoor kitchen in Tijuana to an illegal immigrant on the San Ysidro, California side of the fence. She serves hot, savory meals to many of the 100's of people waiting along the borderline for nightfall and a chance to make a run towards San Diego County. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886938804-5DIETYYJD1IYZAUD8UNL/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_05.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Broken Border AUGUST 17, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CA. Like this child in a party dress riding atop a woman's shoulders, many migrants who enter the U.S. without documents told me they dress up with hopes of blending in once they make it to the sidewalks of nearby San Ysidro, south of San Diego, CA. Another man bides his time reading a novela where the vandalized border barrier that sits horizontally on the U.S. side. (Photo by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886938804-D9CNPBJ2J7S67APER5VG/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_06.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - South Levee Crowd Control FEBRUARY 29, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, MEXICO A U.S. Border Patrol Ford Bronco speeds over the packed mud in the Tijuana River bottom forcing men to scamper into the shallow waterway. I witnessed this from the north levee on the U.S. side. 100 yards to the left I could easily walk across the invisible river bottom borderline and join hundreds of people waiting patiently on the south levee for a gap in enforcement. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886943423-KHUIWUJVROV7S33DSD2M/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_07.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Crossing Over FEBRUARY 14, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. "Crossing Over" Illegal immigrants hold plastic bags over their shoes and pant legs and slosh through the shallows of the foul smelling, sewage polluted Tijuana River. I observed vendors atop the distant south levee doing a brisk business selling these plastic bags for $1 a pair. Behind me is the sloping concrete south levee of the TJ river. It's topped by an 8-ft-fence with U.S. Border Patrol agents behind it. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886942535-2M111CBN8DJHBLF6FZ7A/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_08.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Wraiths Ghosty silhouettes disappear into the fog on the north levee of the Tijuana River. Some carry plastic bags used to protect shoes and pant legs from the sewage polluted river they just crossed. At the top of the 10-ft-high steel fence a smuggler faces the glare of U.S. Border Patrol security lights and plots the timing and route for his charges. The rustle of plastic, the salty stench, the whispers of companions all blended into this monochromatic drama. (Photo by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886945624-03W1XWYU5FRU8EI1JU6C/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_09.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Between Two Worlds FEBRUARY 29, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, MEXICO Two U.S. Border Patrol agents wait next to their car on the north side of the steel border fence just to the west of Virginia Avenue. On the right, would-be immigrants wait at the top of the north levee of the Tijuana River. The view through my camera is not unlike that seen by those who peek through tiny gaps in the surplus steel panel fence. When the time is right, fence jumpers use the horizontal grooves in the panels to climb it like a ladder (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886947849-42IU7T8WEGIUQ4E2ML4N/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_10.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Too Hungry to Knock JUNE 18, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, CA. A pair of young men free fall down the north side of the U.S/Mexico border fence. A smuggler straddling the locked door signals that U.S. Border Patrol agents are not close anymore. Hours before this I listened to voices through the steel barrier offering stories of poverty and asking the value of my camera. But when the smuggler whistled, the barrier thundered loud from climbing feet and banging knees. 6 men sprinted past me in pursuit of their future. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886947527-8KNG936B66SFJ62QXUGF/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_11.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Border Bandit APRIL 26, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CA. After pummeling him with rocks, Carlos Salcido tightens his belt around the neck of a bandit who robbed his son. His 10-yr-old sells sodas to migrants waiting along the U.S. side of the borderline with Tijuana. I heard Salcido screaming from yards away and could see him shredding the shirt off his back. I was here for a story of 5 recent murders and robberies by Mexican gangs. Salcido voiced his frustration about the lawlessness around him and he thanked me for reporting it. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886952514-VN9RVA6VWE2UCA857K9X/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_12.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - The Soccer Field JANUARY 22, 1988. OTAY MESA, CA. Illegal immigrants crowd Padre Florenzo Rigoni to celebrate mass just inside California from Tijuana's Colonia Libertad. The U.S./Mexico border is roughly the white path on the hillside and barbed wire flattened into the dirt by thousands of northbound shoes. "The Soccer Field" name is a border patrol designation for the location in Zapata Canyon. I visited it frequently. Throughout the 80's the masses of unsettled people reminded me of pictures from Ellis Island. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886952679-3NZPH6DV9AGEY3VRGKV9/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_13.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Benediction Before the Journey OTAY MESA, CA. JANUARY 22, 1988 A few yards north of the border, Padre Florenzo Rigoni (left), an Italian missionary priest from Tijuana, and Father John Jensen from the Los Angeles archdiocese, bless anxious migrants before they begin their uncertain nighttime journey north. Some will be captured by U.S. officials, others will fall victim to bands of thieves, others will take the little footpaths in the distance where their fate resides. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886957548-C2Z5FSPWK3NHN3FKAKH4/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_14.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Exodus OTAY MESA, CA. MAY 21, 1983. Legions of migrants walk silently north from The Soccer Field and the U.S./Mexico border. Officials believe that more than a million will cross illegally from Tijuana this year, making the San Diego Sector the most heavily crossed political boundary in the world. An ocean breeze mixes the stench of burning trash with the sweetness of warming tortillas from Colonia Liberated. The only sound is the crunching of feet on the well worn pathways. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886957124-MK28Y6TN41KOY7HTGIJM/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_15.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Bridge Over the Tijuana River MAY 5, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CA. Extended family members of all ages who illegally entered the U.S. before dawn, cross a plank bridge in the Tijuana River Valley. Each paid $1.00 to avoid soiling their nice clothes in the sewage filled waterway. The border is 15 minutes hike behind them. Smugglers are usually very camera shy. This morning however, the guide in shorts was leery but didn't interfere. The family's 73-yr-old patriarch with walking stick told me, "I want to see my son (in Los Angeles) one more time before I die." (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886962211-RQTVKYLBUIVN0OZPQ319/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_16.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Dangerous Tactic JULY 27,1990. SAN YSIDRO, CA. A woman clutching an infant and child in tow follow another across traffic lanes of Interstate 5 about a mile north of the U.S./Mexico border. In the late 1980's and early 90's hundreds of pedestrians were killed and injured on San Diego County freeways. All were illegal immigrants trying to avoid roadways and checkpoints used by the U.S. Border Patrol. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886964075-C343KTX7D9ER6MTBO387/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_17.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Interstate Pedestrians AUGUST 21, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CA. Just after dawn a smuggler leads a group of illegal immigrants across freeway I-5 subjecting many to the dangers of high-speed traffic. Hundreds have been killed and maimed because smugglers erroneously believed law enforcement would ambush them on overpasses. California Department of Transportation asked me to donate more pictures so they could design warning signs and billboards. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886965546-ILE0C999Z1QYLCO6KWWN/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_18.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Warning Sign MARCH 12, 1993. CAMP PENDLETON, CA. Yellow and black freeway pedestrian warning signs like this were designed by an artist from 7 or 8 photographs that I donated to the California Department of Transportation. This is one of dozens erected along San Diego County freeways near the border with Mexico and 70 miles north near Border Patrol checkpoints. The signs and a median fence reduced pedestrian deaths to zero (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886968394-8XHW9ZSJRQQDZL7Y64KP/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_19.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - Bailout MAY 1, 1990. CAMP PENDLETON, CA. A smuggler looks anxiously for authorities as illegal immigrants bail out of the trunk of his 4-door sedan. I was enjoying the ocean view when the car backed in next to me at this viewpoint on freeway I-5 about 3.5 miles south of a Border Patrol checkpoint. I was taken completely by surprise when 6 people burst out and disappeared down towards the beach. Their goal was to hike around the final law enforcement obstacle between the border and Los Angeles. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886969342-SPN2MOCBVZVH7RJ0W94N/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_20.jpg Between Two Worlds4 - No Man’s Land JUNE 3, 1998. OTAY MESA, CA. A U.S. Border Patrol agent and a stray dog sit in a no-man's land between the old surplus steel border fence on the left and a new fine mesh, galvanized steel cantilever barrier on the right. This is between the Otay Mesa and the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The double fencing and all weather road for high speed interdiction disrupted a once favored path to the United States. As a result migratory routes shifted to the mountains and deserts to the east. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/between-two-worlds daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886927240-VBFZBGG58YIPDRD8A18M/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_01.jpg Between Two Worlds - Boundary of the United States OCTOBER 9, 1979. IMPERIAL BEACH, CALIFORNIA. People in Playas Tijuana, Mexico look through the border fence and towards an ecumenical group conducting a ceremony in Friendship Park. The scene was peaceful and calm and I didn't see anyone slip through the very porous fence line. Erected in the mid 1800's, this solid marble obelisk 200 yards from the Pacific Ocean is the western most of 258 monuments that mark the nearly 2,000 mile boundary of the United States and Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886927283-V9ZRGKZMZ1AZIVL7YKAW/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_02.jpg Between Two Worlds - Heavy Traffic on the Border JUNE 25, 1989. SAN YSIDRO, CA. In this late afternoon view through a 1200mm telephoto lens, a U.S. Border Patrol Bronco can be seen kicking up a cloud of dust in the Tijuana River Valley where approximately 375 people wait on the river levees for the right moment to cross into the United States. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886933566-E21M0U37F5RDVAS8WFRO/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_03.jpg Between Two Worlds - Pressure from the South TIJUANA, MEXICO. JUNE 25, 1990. On a hill above the distant Tijuana River Valley, dozens of people crowd against the Mexican side of the 10-ft-high chain-link border fence. A handful of young men face off with U.S. Border Patrol agents on the California side. By nightfall hundreds will scale the fence or crawl through holes and into the United States. The sheer number of illegal immigrants routinely overwhelms attempts at enforcement. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886932879-OFRHMIEFR07Y4X4HIB41/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_04.jpg Between Two Worlds - International Fast Food JUNE 6, 1989. SAN YSIDRO, CA. Francisca Gutierrez, right, passes hot chicken and beans from her makeshift outdoor kitchen in Tijuana to an illegal immigrant on the San Ysidro, California side of the fence. She serves hot, savory meals to many of the 100's of people waiting along the borderline for nightfall and a chance to make a run towards San Diego County. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886938804-5DIETYYJD1IYZAUD8UNL/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_05.jpg Between Two Worlds - Broken Border AUGUST 17, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CA. Like this child in a party dress riding atop a woman's shoulders, many migrants who enter the U.S. without documents told me they dress up with hopes of blending in once they make it to the sidewalks of nearby San Ysidro, south of San Diego, CA. Another man bides his time reading a novela where the vandalized border barrier that sits horizontally on the U.S. side. (Photo by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886938804-D9CNPBJ2J7S67APER5VG/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_06.jpg Between Two Worlds - South Levee Crowd Control FEBRUARY 29, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. A U.S. Border Patrol Ford Bronco speeds over the packed mud in the Tijuana River bottom forcing men to scamper into the shallow waterway. The international boundary itself is an invisible line that runs from the end of the graffiti covered border fence on the south levee in the upper right and diagonally across the riverbed to the south levee where I’m standing and out of the picture to the far left. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886943423-KHUIWUJVROV7S33DSD2M/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_07.jpg Between Two Worlds - Crossing Over FEBRUARY 14, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. Illegal immigrants hold plastic bags over their shoes and pant legs and slosh through the shallows of the foul smelling, sewage polluted Tijuana River. I observed vendors atop the distant south levee doing a brisk business selling these plastic bags for $1 a pair. Behind me is the south levee that’s topped with an 8-ft-fence. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886942535-2M111CBN8DJHBLF6FZ7A/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_08.jpg Between Two Worlds - Wraiths FEBRUARY 22, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. Ghostly silhouettes disappear into the fog on the north levee of the Tijuana River. Some carry plastic bags used to protect shoes and pant legs from the sewage-polluted river they just crossed. At the top of the 10-ft-high steel fence a smuggler faces the glare of U.S. Border Patrol security lights and plots the timing and route for his charges. The rustle of plastic, the salty stench, the whispers of companions all blended into this monochromatic drama. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886945624-03W1XWYU5FRU8EI1JU6C/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_09.jpg Between Two Worlds - Between Two Worlds FEBRUARY 29, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, MEXICO Two U.S. Border Patrol agents wait next to their car on the north side of the steel border fence just to the west of Virginia Avenue. On the right, would-be immigrants wait at the top of the north levee of the Tijuana River. The view through my camera is not unlike that seen by those who peek through tiny gaps in the surplus steel panel fence. When the time is right, fence jumpers use the horizontal grooves in the panels to climb it like a ladder (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886947849-42IU7T8WEGIUQ4E2ML4N/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_10.jpg Between Two Worlds - Too Hungry to Knock JUNE 18, 1992. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. A pair of young men free fall down the north side of the U.S/Mexico border fence. Their smuggler straddling the locked door had just signaled that U.S. Border Patrol agents are not close. Hours before this moment I listened to voices through the steel barrier telling me stories of poverty - and asking the value of my cameras. When the smuggler whistled, the barrier thundered aloud with climbing feet and banging knees. 6 men sprinted past me in pursuit of their future. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886947527-8KNG936B66SFJ62QXUGF/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_11.jpg Between Two Worlds - Border Bandit APRIL 26, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. After pummeling him with rocks, Carlos Salcido tightens his belt around the neck of a bandit who robbed his son. Minutes before this Salcido tore the shirt off the suspect’s back. His 10-yr-old sells sodas to migrants waiting along the U.S. side of the borderline with Tijuana. I was here for a story about 5 recent murders and daily robberies of migrants by Mexican gangsters. Salcido voiced his frustration about the lawlessness around him and he thanked me for reporting it. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886952514-VN9RVA6VWE2UCA857K9X/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_12.jpg Between Two Worlds - The Soccer Field JANUARY 22, 1988. OTAY MESA, CALIFORNIA. Illegal immigrants crowd around Padre Florenzo Rigoni to celebrate mass just inside California from Tijuana's Colonia Libertad. The borderline is roughly the white path on the hillside where barbed wire has long been flattened into the dirt by thousands of northbound shoes. "The Soccer Field" is a U.S. Border Patrol designation for the location known to locals as Cañon Zapata. I visited this unofficial portal frequently throughout the 1980's. The migrating masses of unsettled people reminded me of early 20th Century pictures from Ellis Island. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886952679-3NZPH6DV9AGEY3VRGKV9/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_13.jpg Between Two Worlds - Benediction Before the Journey JANUARY 22, 1988. OTAY MESA, CALIFORNIA. A few yards north of the border, Padre Florenzo Rigoni (left), an Italian missionary priest from Tijuana, and Father John Jensen from the Los Angeles archdiocese bless anxious migrants before they begin their uncertain journey north. As night falls, hundreds will file silently along the narrow footpaths in the distance. Some will be captured by U.S. officials, others will fall victim to bands of thieves, others will have their prayers answered. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886957548-C2Z5FSPWK3NHN3FKAKH4/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_14.jpg Between Two Worlds - Exodus MAY 21, 1983. OTAY MESA, CALIFORNIA. Legions of migrants walk silently north across The Soccer Field and away from the U.S./Mexico border. Officials believe that more than a million will cross illegally from Tijuana this year, making the San Diego Sector the most heavily crossed political boundary in the world. An ocean breeze mixes the stench of burning trash with the sweetness of warming tortillas from Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad. The only sound is the crunching of feet on the well-worn pathways. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886957124-MK28Y6TN41KOY7HTGIJM/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_15.jpg Between Two Worlds - Bridge Over Polluted Water MAY 5, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. Extended family members of all ages who illegally entered the U.S. before dawn cross a plank bridge in the Tijuana River Valley. Each paid $1.00 to avoid soiling their nice clothes in the sewage filled waterway. The border is a 15 minutes hike behind them. Smugglers are usually very camera shy however this morning the guide in shorts was leery but didn't interfere. The family's 73-yr-old patriarch with walking stick told me, "I want to see my son (in Los Angeles) one more time before I die."(Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886962211-RQTVKYLBUIVN0OZPQ319/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_16.jpg Between Two Worlds - Dangerous Tactic JULY 27,1990. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. A woman with an infant in her arms and a child in tow follow another across traffic lanes of Interstate 5 about a mile north of the U.S./Mexico border. In the late 1980's and early 90's hundreds of pedestrians were killed and injured on San Diego County freeways. All were illegal immigrants trying to avoid roadways and checkpoints used by the U.S. Border Patrol. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886964075-C343KTX7D9ER6MTBO387/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_17.jpg Between Two Worlds - Interstate Pedestrians AUGUST 21, 1990. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. Just after dawn a smuggler leads a group of illegal immigrants across freeway I-5 subjecting many to the dangers of high-speed traffic. Hundreds have been killed and maimed because smugglers erroneously believe law enforcement will ambush them on overpasses. Mr. Art Larsen, a public information officer with the California Department of Transportation asked me to donate a number of my original photographs so his graphic designers could craft highway warning signs and billboards. (Photograph by Don Bartletti https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886965546-ILE0C999Z1QYLCO6KWWN/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_18.jpg Between Two Worlds - Warning Sign MARCH 12, 1993. CAMP PENDLETON, CA. Yellow and black freeway pedestrian warning signs like this were designed by an artist from 7 or 8 photographs that I donated to the California Department of Transportation. This is one of dozens erected along San Diego County freeways near the border with Mexico and 70 miles north near Border Patrol checkpoints. The signs and a median fence reduced pedestrian deaths to zero (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886968394-8XHW9ZSJRQQDZL7Y64KP/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_19.jpg Between Two Worlds - Bailout MAY 1, 1990. CAMP PENDLETON, CA. A smuggler looks anxiously for authorities as illegal immigrants bail out of the trunk of his 4-door sedan. I was enjoying the ocean view when the car backed in next to me at this viewpoint on freeway I-5 about 3.5 miles south of a Border Patrol checkpoint. I was taken completely by surprise when 6 people burst out and disappeared down towards the beach. Their goal was to hike around the final law enforcement obstacle between the border and Los Angeles. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1536886969342-SPN2MOCBVZVH7RJ0W94N/Don_Bartletti_Between_Two_Worlds_web_2018_20.jpg Between Two Worlds - No Man’s Land JUNE 3, 1998. OTAY MESA, CA. A U.S. Border Patrol agent and a stray dog sit in a no-man's land between the old surplus steel border fence on the left and a new fine mesh, galvanized steel cantilever barrier on the right. This is between the Otay Mesa and the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The double fencing and all weather road for high speed interdiction disrupted a once favored path to the United States. As a result migratory routes shifted to the mountains and deserts to the east. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/contact daily 0.75 2018-11-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538523751230-LA0W6MORXMU63UO9FL15/Bartletti_CONTACT.jpg Contact https://donbartlettiphotography.com/lectures daily 0.75 2018-11-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538604643027-3Y5YE5JNEJEDS7WFPS22/Bartletti_Annenberg_Lecture_Speaking_2016.jpg Lectures https://donbartlettiphotography.com/hotel-of-the-deported-migrants daily 0.75 2018-09-20 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/looking-for-a-way-home daily 0.75 2018-09-20 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/instagram daily 0.75 2018-10-29 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/assignments daily 0.75 2023-03-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416198879-PPSUQCNENFCRFPEV80UG/Basra-Burning-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Basra Burning APRIL 19, 2003. BASRA, IRAQ. Under a cloud of smoke from a sabotaged oil pipeline, a woman walks home with firewood branches scavenged from street landscaping. Bombing and citizen anarchy in the wake of the U.S. and Canadian Marine's battle for Basra left most of the city without cooking gas, running water or electricity. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416199266-ZT04VFA44VKD2ASE190N/Blessing-the-Lost-River-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Blessing the Lost River FEBRUARY 12, 2014. EL MAYOR, BAJA, MEXICO. Inocencia Gonzalez Saiz, 77 recites a traditional prayer and waves burning sage over a now dry marsh that once teamed with fish and waterfowl along the Colorado River delta of Baja, Mexico. The Cocopah Indian elder holds little hope that the ceremony will bring back the lush ecosystem of her youth. Upstream demands have taken every drop from the Colorado River and transformed the wetlands into a desert. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416200868-HXO7GQY9P18Z3YE13GR2/Cirrus-Lenticulars-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Sirrus Lenticular MARCH 25, 2006. BOULDER OAKS, CA. High altitude cirrus lenticular clouds form fantastic shapes over a windmill farm in the mountains along Highway 8 about 50 miles east of San Diego. Lenticular clouds are generated by strong winds blowing over rugged terrain. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416202409-WHYEJPNGIL4Y7OFFDCQ4/Cosmic-Outfielder-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Cosmic Outfielder ARCH 23, 1996. ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK, CA. Jay Bartletti, 19 poses as if to snatch Comet Hyakutake from the clear desert sky. It's the brightest comet seen in 20 years and remained visible to the naked eye for 3 months. This single exposure was recorded on one frame of film: Kodak 400 color negative film processed normally. Nikon camera, 50mm lens. Strobe @f.8 on subject. Ambient exposure for comet, 45-seconds @ f.2. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416204069-61MFW11YG0KVQE2EU15W/Endeavor%27s-Final-Journey-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Endeavor's Final Journey OCTOBER 13, 2012. LOS ANGELES CA. After logging 123,000,000 miles in space, the retired shuttle Endeavour inches across 48th and Crenshaw at 2 mph on it's final 12-mile trek to the California Science Center where it will be on permanent display. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416205135-F0ZQYGXNL516O7D1M5IX/Forest-Inferno-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Forest Inferno AUGUST 25, 2013. GROVELAND, CA. Firefighter Dusty La Chapelle prepares to retreat as 50-ft- high flames devour a pine forest near Yosemite National Park. Livestock scattered but his crew managed to keep flames away from nearby barns and ranch houses. The Rim Fire burned for 9 weeks and destroyed more than 400 square miles of Sierra Nevada mountain range forest. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416205006-GL9MRPQSBG81D9CAVL07/Graveside-Embrace-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Graveside Embrace JANUARY 27, 1999. SANTA ANA, CA. Virginia Jefferies, 24 clutches two red roses and the flag that draped her husband’s coffin. John Jefferies and three fellow firefighters were killed a week ago when their private airplane crashed in Chino Hills. Married just 5 months, Virginia and John were high school sweethearts. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416207975-VJO5T46LPAADMSGMM0F0/Manila-Slum-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Manila Slum NOVEMBER 2, 2004. MANILA, PHILIPPINES. Yolanda Salamat earns a living carving the grit out of her customer’s toenails. Outside her hovel sewage trickles along the train tracks where her 13-yr-old daughter washes clothes. One of few tickets out of this poverty stricken neighborhood for teenage girls is as an entertainer in Japanese nightclubs. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416208717-9LEBM1UU0XR0WXS4C5SY/Pacific-Avalanche-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Pacific Avalanche UGUST 27, 2014. NEWPORT BEACH, CA. A surfer races a huge wave at The Wedge Jetty beach. 25-ft-high waves generated by Hurricane Marie brought few rescues after life guards enforced a restriction that only the most skilled surfers and body-boarders should enter the water. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416210088-JOAIS470MZQV7M87ZL1H/Something-Lost-Something-Found-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Something Lost - Something Found OCTOBER 25, 2007. RANCHO BERNARD, CA. Tress Goodwin, 28 holds her grandmother's coffee cup she found amid the ruins of her childhood home. Her entire neighborhood was lost to a wildfire that raged for days across North San Diego County. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416212072-RVNRUHWX5RA6OFNKMP28/Tibetan+Ritual_Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Tibetan Ritual JUNE 4, 2005. MT. KAILASH, TIBET. As snow begins to fall, a Buddhist monk continues his 32-mile crawl around the base of Mt. Kailash. The ritual process called prostration involves taking two steps, falling to the ground, kissing the pathway and repeating the sequence. The faithful believe the 3-week circumnavigation of Tibetan Buddhism’s most holy mountain will insure a good reincarnation. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Geo Magazine) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538416212328-VSPLQPSD8J8D83GIU4WB/Warm-Greeting-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments - Warm Greeting JUNE 7, 2013. PALM SPRINGS, CA. U.S. President Barrack Obama greets California's First Lady, Anne Gust Brown and Governor Jerry Brown at the Palm Springs airport. Obama just arrived for a two-day conference with China's President Xi Jinping at the Annenberg Retreat. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1634319015299-5O3RZIDKL1FFNEPJA5H8/Web_Don_Bartletti_Lone_Pine_Horses_2020.jpg Assignments - Lone Pine Horses JANUARY 16, 2020. LONE PINE, CA. On a cold and windy evening, free-range horses gather for the night near a corral in Lone Pine, California. In the summer they become pack animals for hikers and fishermen who venture into the distant Eastern Sierras. (Photograph © 2020 Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1634319165670-PMH3U128PREX19JQ4FQL/Web_Bartletti_Border_Cubans_2021.jpg Assignments - Cubans Pray at Border APRIL 21, 2021. SAN LUIS, ARIZONA. Two Cuban nationals fall to their knees in prayer moments after scaling the U.S./Mexico border fence in San Luis, Arizona south of Yuma. 10 minutes later they and 2 fellow countrymen surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol authorities and expressed a desire to plea for asylum in the U.S. They made their way from Cuba via Nicaragua and Mexico over the past 4 months. This gate in a zigzag along the border fence has become the Holy Grail for migrants. (Photograph ©2021 by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/the-roads-most-traveled daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503617026-MIP5K6HVXSOO9CAQ4XCX/5_Bartletti_PRODUCE_OF_MEXICO.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - Product of Mexico https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503732459-70ONSXO4W35Z4AO514ZE/8_Bartletti_THE_NEW_FOREIGN_AID.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - The New Foreign Aid https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503177387-R0XWO0LZCLTIKH6V2NT7/1_Bartletti_BETWEEN_TWO_WORLDS.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - Between Two Worlds https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503427281-IL3FSODTTUHJBCHH8HFI/2_Bartletti_UNEASY_NEIGHBORS.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - Uneasy Neighbors https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503686639-1D03PF4QIHUA51AK9N7M/7_Bartletti_THE_FIRE_WITHIN.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - The Fire Within https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503483259-OMCU2CN1PKM2BFXLYKHA/3_Bartletti_ENRIQUES_JOURNEY.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - Enrique’s Journey https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503557266-ZULI8165SOGZLPBW2K7K/4_Bartletti_MEXICO_UNDER_SIEGE.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - Mexico Under Siege https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538503656117-3WPDY5MYD4XYJN4LFSDU/6_Bartletti_WITHOUT_A_COUNTRY.jpg The Roads Most Traveled - Without a Country https://donbartlettiphotography.com/assignments-lectures daily 0.75 2018-10-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610618446-IPDWJP6BK0ZOGQBWYAQY/Blessing-the-Lost-River-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610618447-EX0SDAG09FUZNG1D4323/Cirrus-Lenticulars-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610619220-4ENC8WY990MFAYI4CRNJ/Cosmic-Outfielder-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610619368-VFNETP8FAGK7VD0P6YK0/Endeavor%27s-Final-Journey-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610619891-ICZ6YR7SMJV6YJ3A8GTU/Forest-Inferno-Don-Bartletti.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610775538-3H04WBCM81JTT5FSA7VR/Giulia_Prati_Essay.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610775593-1WJRC20R722DXKWM69TR/Bartletti_Newseum_Pulitzer_Photo_2015.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610714611-PEDHF0UCSN0WULVFAXQ4/The_Roads_Most_Traveled_Lecture_Speaking_Photo.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610714073-W52AIDJ2JJR5MBNV6DJ6/Bartletti_Annenberg_Lecture_Audience_2016.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538610714075-GEAH86NRIH3HZVVCNOZI/Bartletti_Annenberg_Lecture_Speaking_2016.jpg Assignments+Lectures https://donbartlettiphotography.com/about daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541117853648-EJEI6SIZD7FQ0JNGSGGD/Don-Bartletti.jpeg About https://donbartlettiphotography.com/press daily 0.75 2020-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538585221963-SXBIJC43N6MOK8NS5079/Giulia_Prati_Essay.jpg Press https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1538586674028-NZW3WPV9C5LFCE2ITXMV/PhotographerSpeak.jpg Press https://donbartlettiphotography.com/enriques-journey daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211892015-S2A0MGVE7W1YGOHD8E70/01_Misery%27s_Company.jpg Enrique's Journey - Misery's Company JULY 24, 2000. TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS. Buzzards compete with children for scraps to eat or something to sell on the roadside. This was the photographic metaphor I'd been looking for to illustrate abject poverty that fuels migration from Central America to the U.S. With every step flies roiled up into my nose and ears; buzzard guano splattered my cap and cameras like hail. Juan Flores, 15 protects his face best because his family depends on his endurance. Little brother is learning to also pack his bag with castoffs from the poor. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211883523-LCFZFMQEA3BN2IH5CSMQ/02_Going_Home.jpg Enrique's Journey - Going Home JULY 12, 2014. SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS. At the back door of the city morgue, relatives lower 6-yr-old Estefani Chavez Zuniga into a casket before taking her home to where just yesterday, a gangster's errant bullet punctured her heart. I watched her aunt and uncle gasp when they saw the bullet hole and ghastly pattern of autopsy stitches across her torso. Then they clothed Estefani in her First Holy Communion dress. For this image I climbed in the bed of the pickup. Rain and tears blurred my vision and I missed the focus. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211896508-FC8PRMX93E1NI2PLGNJT/03_Checking_The_Exodus.jpg Enrique's Journey - Checking the Exodus JULY 4, 2014. OCOTEPEQUE, HONDURAS. Outside their bus at a mobile police checkpoint en route to the Guatemala border, a little girl says her name and those of her parent's. U.S. funded and trained Honduran special police units are attempting to interrupt the outflow of children being smuggled to the U.S. In this case the children's parents claimed they were not leaving the country. Many of the 60,000 minor children that sought asylum at the Texas border this year used this route. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211904476-TN6WMB30ZVWQUJW34LF7/04_Out_of_Central_America.jpg Enrique's Journey - Out of Central America JULY 29, 2000. CIUDAD HIDALGO, CHIAPAS, MEXICO. A raft owner carries his float out of the Suchiate River as a load of boys from Honduras grounds itself on the riverbank in the background. I made the unlawful crossing with them from the Guatemala side of the river and scrambled up the slope. In an instant the 4 migrants are framed at the very moment they became illegal immigrants in Mexico. From here to the U.S. border they'll likely become fodder for policemen, gangsters and a train called The Beast, on this, the most dangerous migratory route on the continent. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211908741-4QQ4J4YUHA0F8TXAIH3A/05_Chasing_The_Beast.jpg Enrique's Journey - Chasing The Beast AUGUST 26, 2000. MEDIAS AGUAS, VERACRUZ, MEXICO. "Chasing The Beast" Honduran teens catch up to a moving freight train in a Veracruz, Mexico switching yard. A lost grip could instantly put a stowaway beneath its iron wheels. Every second that I photographed migrants jumping aboard, it picked up speed. I hustled over the loose gravel to focus on as many boardings as possible before slinging 2 cameras over my back. The instant I gripped a train ladder I was mercilessly yanked forward and slammed sideways against skin of The Beast. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211918801-8VKCC8MYRT2QVDNMNY7O/06_Perils_Overhead.jpg Enrique's Journey - Perils Overhead AUGUST 4, 2000. TONALA, CHIAPAS, MEXICO. Clinging to the top of a speeding freight train, Denis Evan Contrarez, 12, right, and Santo Antonio Gamay, 25, go face down to avoid tree branches flying over their bodies. Denis had seen branches lacerate and throw people clear off the train. Minutes before this picture, stowaways were yelling, "rama, rama, rama!" Then I was clobbered and sent reeling. Prepared for the next warning, I pre-focused, set a slow camera shutter speed, aimed, dropped my head into the crook of my arm and fired away. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211921289-J3EBS4SKYHSNMHFESVNU/07_The_Pilgrim_Train.jpg Enrique's Journey - The Pilgrim Train SEPTEMBER 6, 2000. CHIVELA, OAXACA, MEXICO. Dozens of Central American stowaways ride north through the Mexican countryside. Weeks before, a Grupo Beta migrant protection officer shared his name for the railway: "El Tren Peligrino", the "Pilgrim Train". I noted it in my journal. When I aimed a telephoto lens at the faces of these stowaways, the phrase came into focus. Not a single wayfarer is looking back at gang violence, joblessness, family or the countries that failed them. Each is staring north on a long journey of hope. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211928622-KKYBBMGZT4ZMROX7DMVJ/08_Agony.jpg Enrique's Journey - Agony AUGUST 3, 2000. TONALA, CHIAPAS, MEXICO. After 15 hours aboard a freight train, Santo Antonio Gamay grips the railing of a box car as the train slows for an immigration checkpoint. I was on my stomach looking down when he leaned his head back and opened his mouth. All I heard was squealing iron wheels and rumbling box cars. But his cruciform posture stunned me like an electric shock. I yelled to myself, "Push the shutter, push the shutter!" Before he jumped off he told me he prayed not be arrested a 3d time and deported again to the Guatemala border. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211929524-4RBUW8LX9V7W2AER5887/09_End_of_the_Line.jpg Enrique's Journey - End of the Line AUGUST 8, 2000. TAPACHULA, CHIAPAS, MEXICO. David Velasquez,13, and Roberto Gaytan, 17 sob and await transport to jail. The Guatemalans were half asleep with a dozen other Central Americans when they were nabbed by local police in a dawn raid of the rail yard. I spend many, many days and nights. This was the station where legions of illegal immigrants hopped aboard unscheduled freights on the rail line to the U.S. border. David said he was bound for Los Angeles, Roberto for North Carolina. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211937028-5BV2LC9DVUVRGCN0V9G5/10_Gift_for_a_Northbound_Migrant.jpg Enrique's Journey - Gift for a Northbound Migrant AUGUST 30, 2000. FORTIN, VERACRUZ, MEXICO. Central American stowaways reach from a speeding freight train for Fabian Gonzalez Hernandez' gift of an orange. During my project research, migrants at the U.S. border told me of the " food throwers of Veracruz". I confirmed the legend several times with other poor trackside residents tossing tortillas, water, candy and sweaters. At the very 30th/sec of this photograph I stumbled and flinched in horror that I would fall against the train. Although I pre-planned my technique and composition, I first saw this moment when I developed the film weeks later. The photograph has two elusive gifts I reach for: substance and style. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211938764-BNLV5T8AVOU6EWNSL4LJ/11_Chiapas_Racers.jpg Enrique's Journey - Chiapas Racers AUGUST 3, 2000. CHIAPAS, MEXICO. Youngsters race a freight train that Central American stowaways call "The Beast". Everyone around me on top of the hopper car clapped and whistled as the kids galloped through the verdant Chiapas countryside. I struggled to focus and compose with a 200mm lens as my ride lurched from side to side. From a burst of 5, this frame captures a noble horseman, his radiant passenger, frayed reins and unreachable stirrups of their borrowed horse. The editorial backstory is the joy the 30-second sprint gave the migrants. And the beast beat "The Beast". (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211946867-8XRM7QB3XHGUYPEIJ9Y2/12_Bound_to_El_Norte.jpg Enrique's Journey - Bound to El Norte SEPTEMBER 11, 2000. TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO. A Central American boy sits atop a speeding freight train near Teotihuacan, Mexico. I rode all night from tropical Veracruz through tunnels and the cold mountain passes to Mexico City. At first light, I spotted a tiny figure seated 3 hopper cars ahead. I jogged forward and leaped from car to car to reach him before we were enveloped in the fog. I squeezed off a few horizontal and vertical frames. I got one step closer, about to ask his name when I saw he was shivering, sniffling and sobbing. My empathy as a parent pulled me back from a private moment I felt should be his and his alone. The anonymous, underdressed boy in a dirty shirt never noticed me on his sojourn to El Norte, somewhere over the invisible horizon. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211946878-RY93BSTMZSCG2ZTZBTPR/13_Into_the_Rio_Grande.jpg Enrique's Journey - Into the Rio Grande SEPTEMBER 19, 2000. NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO. Stripped to their underwear, Nicaraguan Gonzalo Rodriguez Toledo and another Central American ease into the Rio Grande River in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Texas is on the other side. Two weeks previous to this night, I was robbed on a freight train in Central Mexico and lost all my camera gear. Cautious not to drown this pair of replacements, I hid my Nikons on the riverbank and followed them into the water with a cheap, happy-snap waterproof camera. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211952777-64YX0X5A09BXRKV509AU/14_Hideout.jpg Enrique's Journey - Hideout MAY 28, 2000. NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO. Sweating profusely, Ermis Galiano, 15 nurses a painful lump on his forehead after a stoning by local drunks. For 3 weeks they avoided injury on the freight trains through Mexico. This bad luck forced Ermis and his Honduran schoolmate Edin to hide in a culvert on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River with Texas. Another boy burns trash to keep warm deeper inside the pipe. I stayed with the boys all night in case the injury turned into an emergency. In the morning I paid for an exam and medicine and terminated any further photography of them. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211959540-VNNRCS6737ZWKW3Q2G87/15_Organized_Smuggling.jpg Enrique's Journey - Organized Smuggling FEBRUARY 28, 2007. SASABE, SONORA, MEXICO. Lugging jugs of water, migrants from Central America and Mexico begin a 3-day hike just south of the unmarked border with Arizona. I covered the institutional smuggling of illegal immigrants from Altar, Mexico to Arivaca, Arizona. I had to run to keep up with this group led by an independent smuggler who gave up trying to scare me away. Cartel smugglers were less tolerant. Group Beta, a Mexican government migrant protection unit at a checkpoint on the road to the border said they register 4-500 migrants a day (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539211966294-4LMU4N34VITTQA2982DS/16_Corridor_of_Death.jpg Enrique's Journey - Corridor of Death APRIL 8, 2013. FALFURRIAS, TEXAS. Forensic investigator Alonzo Rangel notes the corpse of a female in her 20's discovered by a rancher west of Highway 281 and 150 miles north of the Mexican border. She is the 19th victim recovered this year along what the Brooks County Sheriff calls "The Corridor of Death". The soft sand is blistering hot yet smugglers force illegal immigrants to hike day or night more than 5 miles around the 281 checkpoint. Empty water bottles, discarded clothing and backpacks from weakened migrants litter desert route. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541186934837-PTMDDWCY1THRM45439XJ/17_Motel_Tapachula.jpg Enrique's Journey - Motel Tapachula AUGUST 1, 2000. TAPACHULA, CHIAPAS, MEXICO I met Denis Contreras at the crack of dawn in a railroad freight yard. His room for the night was this hopper car with a bed of gravel and paper bags for a mattress and blanket. He'd run away from San Pedro Sula, Honduras a month ago with little more than his mother's San Diego, California phone number. For a few days on his journey, Denis taught me how to tame "The Beast". He was 12, I was 53. Long after he moved on by himself, his lessons enabled me to survive 3 months as a stowaway aboard more than a dozen trains. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541186928754-QM9DUKN2SDSIM7LLRMPE/18_I%27m_Back%21.jpg Enrique's Journey - I’m Back! AUGUST 9, 2010. LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA. A couple hours before I made this photograph, Denis Contreras, 21 called me on my Los Angeles Times cell phone. "Donato, I'm back! I have a have a job, a girlfriend and I go to church." I first met the Honduran citizen when he was hopping freight trains in southern Mexico at age 12. I found him again when he was 15 at his mom's apartment in San Diego, and at age 20 as a deportee in Tijuana. By 24 his immigration status caught up with him and he was deported for a third time, leaving 2 children behind with his girlfriend. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541186934255-528K2GN02ZMB2EE8GIQR/19_Was_It_Worth_It-.jpg Enrique's Journey - Was It Worth It? JULY 28, 2000. CHIAPAS, MEXICO. JULY 10, 2014, SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS. When Denis Contraries was 12 he wore an oversize Tweedy Bird shirt on his journey to San Diego, California. When he was 24 I met him again in his childhood home wearing a "Sandra" tattoo – the name of both his sister and his daughter. He'd been deported from the U.S. for a 3d time, leaving his little girl behind. "I should never have come to the U.S. Sandra raised me since I was 1 1/2 years old. She was my sister and mother too. But I left...and broke my sister's heart." I asked what he'd say to the thousands of people still leaving Honduras. "I would tell them to stay" (in Honduras). Was it worth it? "No!" (Photographs by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/mexico-under-siege daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217771402-9R8SDTQS0JHQD6E4G14R/01_Up_In_Smoke.JPG Mexico under siege - Up In Smoke FEBRUARY 5, 2009. TIJUANA, MEXICO. As a member of the press I was invited to witness Mexico's irregular attempts to put a positive spin its fledging war with drug cartels. It was theater at its best. Here, 2 tons of seized contraband marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and prescription pills go up in a blaze of glory at an Army base near downtown Tijuana. After many speeches the Army band played the national anthem, a trumpet sounded, the mayor slammed his fist on a big button and poof, the gasoline soaked heap came alive and created a cloud of grey smoke high over the city. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217760099-Y4IKC0V4P1CPUFVCA2SN/02_Looking_for_Mules.JPG Mexico under siege - Looking for Mules MARCH 11, 2009. ANIMAS, NEW MEXICO. I imbedded with U.S. Border Patrol drug trackers in the southwest corner of New Mexico. When supervisory Agent Jose Portillo stopped along rural Hwy 9 to scan the moonlit desert I jumped out of his Ford Explorer, laid on the warm asphalt and squeezed off this 6 second exposure of the night scene. He said I was the only photojournalist to gut it out for a week and photograph the arrest of the very elusive cartel "drug mules" - Mexican men who lug 70 pounds of pot for 100 miles from Agua Prieta, Mexico to Interstate 10. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217789950-2ESO9BVMG9A8PGMB2MDJ/03_Captured_Drug_Mules.JPG Mexico under siege - Captured Drug Mules MARCH 19, 2009. RODEO, NEW MEXICO. Patrick Limbaugh from the U.S. Border Patrol's elite BORSTAR search team, escorts a quartet of Mexican cartel drug smugglers through the desert scrub. Over my 7 days with tracking teams I imagined a cartel "drug mule" should look like Superman or at least the Terminator. To shoot that theory down by “dragging the shutter” (1/5th/sec) and firing a strobe in the dead of night to illuminate 4 skinny guys in crummy shoes. They were not super men after all. They were super-motivated campesinos, recruited with the dream of overcoming the nightmare of poverty in Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217794210-RYAV5Y68NA9W0SLJRD6S/04_Carnage_Just_Around_the_Corner.JPG Mexico under siege - Carnage Just Around the Corner OCTOBER 16, 2008. TIJUANA, MEXICO. Schoolboys peer through a bullet riddled window and gawk at pools of blood inside. I got to this 2-story house the morning after a horrific shootout the previous afternoon - just around the corner from a junior high school. 5 cartel gunmen and a Mexican Army soldier died in a hail of bullets. The macabre scene stunk of teargas and human remains. Students dashed through the living room and bedrooms slipping on coagulated gobs of blood and collecting spent bullet rounds, not the shells but the bullets themselves. Before some of the students walked the final block to class they had posted their photos on social media. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217810560-JUMPDY9QN76C6SAQUMYG/05_Widow%27s_Grief.JPG Mexico under siege - Widow’s Grief APRIL 30, 2009. TIJUANA, MEXICO. At a downtown Tijuana police memorial a new widow runs her fingers over the name of her husband Alejandro Figuero Medrano. The motorcycle patrolman was one of 7 Tijuana Police men and women slain in coordinated ambushes across the city that lasted just 45 minutes. Press access to the funeral, and shootout scenes were remarkably open. I chose to get close to this mind-numbing emotion by standing far away with a telephoto lens. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217819276-19HEVUFO1AWJN9MD76L3/06_You_Dogs_You_Dogs.JPG Mexico under siege - “You Dogs, You Dogs” CULIACAN, SINALOA, MEXICO. NOVEMBER 20, 2008. Local journalists I hired to help me survive Culiacan's ugly drug war advised me to shoot my pictures quickly and drive away. I usually did. But this time I hung around the crime scene where 5 undercover federal policemen were ambushed as they drove past a casino in an upscale part of the city. Suddenly a woman burst through the crowd and screamed, “!Tus perros! Tus perros!” "You dogs, you dogs!" She ran in circles and cried out repeatedly with hate for the cartel gunmen who got away with murder; with hate for those wiped out the relative she loved; with hate for those who have essentially laid siege to this city. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217834346-G9E67M6R69CPPHQBMT6H/07_Ambush_Victims.JPG Mexico under siege - Ambush Victims CULIACAN, SINALOA, MEXICO. NOVEMBER 19, 2008. My cameras and credentials enabled me to get sickeningly close to Mexico's bloody drug war. When I peered into the bed of this pickup truck I found 2 undercover state policemen sprawled next to their weapons. They were ambushed 30 minutes ago on the main drag along with 3 of their comrades in the cab. After every shootout across Mexico, and just across this street in Culiacan, there were civilians eager for a closer look. Likewise on this side of the street the crowd behind me was three rows deep. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217865236-UAQYOTZY17GE1UIC93SC/08_A_Closer_Look.JPG Mexico under siege - A Closer Look CIUDAD JUAREZ, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO. NOVEMBER 24, 2008. Neighbors on both sides of the yellow police tape strain for a closer look at a murder scene in their hardscrabble colonia. I imbedded for a day with forensic workers who drove around the murder capital of Mexico until the unmarked van was full with 10 bodies. Suddenly my escort anxiously demanded to see a picture he’d seen me shoot a minute earlier. He zoomed in for a closer look at a photo on the screen of my digital camera. Just visible in a compositionally boring photo were 2 stylishly dressed woman. They were staring right at me, not at the murder scene like everyone else. He figured they were cartel spotters, here to confirm that the hired gunmen had hit their marks. A block down the street in this grindingly poor neighborhood, we flew past a parked Cadillac Escalade. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217856079-CYAEWEBEF53FXBGXBRMJ/09_On_Patrol.JPG Mexico under siege - On Patrol JUNE 23, 2009. CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO. A surefire way to get to the Mexican drug war was to go on patrol with Mexican Army troops. Mexican president Felipe Calderón had dispatched 1000's of soldiers and federal police across the Republic to rein in the violence. I'm speeding across this very wide city south of El Paso, Texas with a squad of army policemen. The wild ride came to a halt in the middle of a street, next to a tattooed young man lying face up. As was the case wherever I traveled during the 2 years I covered the drug war, we got there when it was over. No suspects, no witnesses. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217877575-VOJK9IO2XEW51QM1M24I/10_Azteca_Gangster.JPG Mexico under siege - Azteca Gangster JUNE 23, 2009. CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO. A Mexican Army soldier and local police cover Daniel Chavez, one of 6 victims so far today in this bullet-riddled border town. Chavez is reported to have been with the Azteca drug gang and was gunned while j-walking across the newly paved concrete boulevard. I was on patrol with Army soldiers when we pulled up to the scene. My unrestricted access enabled me to see tattooed drug symbols not covered by his wife-beater pullover and a crucifix dangling in the puddle of blood. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217884293-3TELW03940K0OBSTNGGM/11_Bullet_Holes.JPG Mexico under siege - Bullet Holes NOVEMBER 24, 2008. CIUDAD JUAREZ, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO. An autopsy surgeon lifts the belly skin of a gangster that bears his tattooed history and the 2 bullet holes that ended his life today. Tattoos suggest the young man belonged to the Aztecas, a street gang that works as muscle for the Juarez drug cartel. This gut-wrenching moment was a shocking first in my long career of shocking firsts. 2 years on the Mexican drug war beat for the Los Angeles Times exposed me to more dead bodies than I saw as a soldier in the Vietnam War. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217899851-TE0MSMKE8YMZSDP86Z26/12_Wake_for_a_Brother.JPG Mexico under siege - Wake for a Brother OCTOBER 16, 2008. TIJUANA, MEXICO. 9-yr-old Arturo stares through the coffin glass at his brother, 19-year-old Felipe Alejandro Prado. The street level drug dealer was killed during a drive-by in this tough hillside slum in southeastern Tijuana. In the background, neighbors at the wake console his mother. Later on, outside the tiny house I asked Arturo's buddy what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said in Spanish, "Maybe a fireman or a narco”. I gasped and fired back, "Why would you want to be a drug peddler when your friend's drug dealing brother is dead inside?" He said, "Because narcos have nice cars and pretty girlfriends". (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217908263-AVUA5BD9VM0CMT9X4MQM/13_Artist_to_the_Cartel.JPG Mexico under siege - Artist to the Cartel SEPTEMBER 21, 2009. CULIACAN, MEXICO. Locally renowned muralist José Espinoza Moraila, bows and pays respect his beer drinking bosses on a marble mausoleum patio. At Panteón Jardines de Humaya, Culiacan's notorious narco cemetery, the dead have air conditioning and double pane windows. Moralia decorates their altars and 3-story domes with angels, saints and flowers. This is the first and only time I stood face to face with Sinaloa Cartel capos. When one of them ambushed me with a question, Moraila instantly deflected suspicion of “the guy with the camera”. "Oh, he's my friend taking pictures of my paintings". (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217923086-HZ2SVRROQHQVJUZFDLSY/14_Parents_of_the_Disappeared.JPG Mexico under siege - Parents of the Disappeared FEBRUARY 6, 2009. TIJUANA, MEXICO. Against a huge photograph taped on a Baja, Mexico government office, Fernando Ocegueda presses his hands on the likeness of his 23-yr-old son who recently vanished from the face of the Earth. He's with Parents of the Disappeared, a group of citizens protesting the thousands of drug-war kidnapping and murder cases that have been ignored, bungled or blocked by law enforcement officials across Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217934362-S8TEVB68004R39FZBQB8/15_Dead_Friday_at_Senor_Maguey%27s.JPG Mexico under siege - Dead Friday at Señor Maguey’s FEBRUARY 8, 2007. TIJUANA, MEXICO. I’d been strolling along Avenida Revolución looking for symbols of Tijuana’s collapsed tourist industry. It was a frustrating search until I got to the top of the cantina stairs and found Jose Belaza dozing off. In every way this moment represents how the Mexican drug war has scared away Americans who used to crowd Tijuana's colorful bar scene. Of the violence that's wiped out his business, Belaza got red faced and screamed, "We deserve this! The police are terrible! All of them are corrupt! No one escapes it! We don't want it but have to accept it as the truth." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539217951957-ODMVBCGLS2QABNE8Q2M9/16_Trolling+for+Smugglers.JPG Mexico under siege - Trolling for Smugglers MARCH 12, 2004. TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION, ARIZONA. Olivario Listo Enos, 66 keeps a hawk-eye out for drug smugglers and loads of illegal immigrants who routinely cross through his ranch that sits smack against the U.S./Mexico border 85 miles southwest of Tucson. As we patrolled around he smiled and said that when he intercepts smugglers he fires a live round from his rifle or pistol over their vehicle. "They stop every time. I say, ‘give me your drugs, your women, or your car’. I don't do drugs and I'm too old for sex so I take their keys." He has 11 vehicles corralled on his ranch that he’s figurin’ to sell. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/uneasy-neighbors daily 0.75 2018-10-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539901793637-MIFL9TJQ010NPN1HZ6DX/01_Highway_Camp.JPG Uneasy Neighbors - Highway Camp JULY 25, 1989. ENCINITAS, CALIFORNIA. 40 miles north of the border, two brothers and three companions from Huehuetenango, Guatemala, bed down for the night on a terrace above the Interstate 5. Only after dark do they file up the hill to the exposed flat spot. By day they wait at the shopping center below for offers of work from area homeowners and contractors. I spent parts of 2 nights here to talk and make the photograph. One man said, “We don’t live like this in Guatemala. We have beds and houses and families and neighbors - but we don't have food” (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539901784905-B3Z453NH27WXP3XP35DI/02_Uneasy_Neighbors.JPG Uneasy Neighbors - Uneasy Neighbors MAY 2, 1988. CARLSBAD, CA. Within sight of upper middle-class suburbia, a young illegal immigrant cooks dinner on an open fire in front of his camouflaged hut. He told me he works for a carpet contractor almost every day. At night he retreats to the all but invisible “Green Valley” squatter’s camp that’s home to 300 or so Mexican and Central American laborers. Embraced by the community as a ready source of cheap labor, immigrant workers are nevertheless shunned outside of work hours. The camp was dismantled 18 months later. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539901890782-O5HW53ME29VSUISSJFGT/03_Dog_Days_of_Winter.JPG Uneasy Neighbors - Dog Days of Winter MARCH 6, 1991. OCEANSIDE, CA. A farm worker washes clothes next to his tiny sleeping shelter. In the distance is a dormitory reserved for immigrant employees of Harry Singh & Sons tomato growers who have an H-2A Temporary Agricultural Worker visa. Laborers in the U.S. illegally nevertheless manage to survive in this San Luis Rey River Valley squatter’s camp where there is no electricity or sanitary facilities. Shelters are cobbled from scavenged sheet plastic and tomato stakes. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539901865397-AK9DKGBYVJB2H2KTW3X1/04_Mud_Bath.JPG Uneasy Neighbors - Mud Bath MARCH 27, 1991. OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA. Canopied by trees in a riparian sheltered squatter’s camp, a laborer bathes with cold water tapped from a nearby farm. Carmen Chavez wipes the crud from a scavenged ice chest. The San Luis Rey River Valley is home to about 100 Mexican men, women with children who mostly work on the Harry Singh & Sons tomato ranch. I found the place to be less like a homeless camp and more like an embryonic barrio. Resourceful new comers solved everyday needs without electricity or sanitation in exchange for wages that were unattainable in the country they abandoned. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539901991219-UPY97XR4HP0SJI59AUXX/05_Gonsalo%27s_Back_Yard.JPG Uneasy Neighbors - Gonsalo’s Back Yard MARCH 16, 1991. OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA. 10-yr-old Gonsalo Lopez coaxes a basketball from the hoop he and his father crafted from tree branches and drip irrigation tape. His family cheers every free throw but there’s no dribbling across the soggy river bottom court. His living room and bedroom are paved in mud too. The family fled Oaxaca, Mexico with dreams of work in El Norte but their timing was off. The nearby tomato ranch is shut down until seasonal rain subsides. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539901915962-MZE708IOB8A2F79MKT4W/06_Light_Touch.JPG Uneasy Neighbors - Light Touch JULY 22, 1989. RANCHO SANTA FE, CALIFORNIA. I spent Friday night in this squatter’s camp whose 50 residents nicknamed it as “Cerro Beach” or Hill Beach for the flume that brings fresh water to San Diego County’s wealthiest community. On this Saturday morning Francisco and Lidia lounge in their open-air living room and reveal a tender moment I didn't expect. I'd spoken with them earlier as Lydia swept up with a bundle of sticks. Later they reserved their attention for one another. President Reagan’s 1986 amnesty law provided a sense of security for Francisco but it effectively split his Mexican family so he smuggled his wife across the San Diego border for a temporary visit. He’s a farm worker; she's a maid in a multi-million-dollar mansion just over the hill. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902750598-ELDWOJ4W7VLC6L7VOO0Q/07_Home_Away_from_Home.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Home Away from Home AUGUST 16, 1989. CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA. Wilfredo Ramirez Sr. boils chicken outside his sleeping shelter in the Loma Grande farm worker squatter camp off El Camino Real in North San Diego County. Wilfrido insisted I pull up a tomato crate and join him for a plastic bowl of soup. He never spoke a word about what looked to me like primitive living conditions. Instead he invited me to visit his real home in Mexico to see how years of remittances from California had vastly improved his family’s life in Oaxaca. I took him up on the offer. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902750060-QZLX42TKMACWFOQZHWZP/08_Gladiola_Harvest.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Gladiola Harvest OCTOBER 7, 1987. ENCINITAS, CALIFORNIA. José Velasquez carries flower buds that will be shipped across the U.S.A. and beyond. An ideal climate, imported water and fertilizer make the earth bloom in North San Diego County but little is done for the foreign-born laborer. Velasquez, a migrant farm worker from Mexico, lives in a primitive sleeping shelter at the edge of the field. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902758475-MW28I4FHDQOPJHO9IWY0/09_Ballet_of_Hope.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Ballet of Hope MAY 4, 1988. FAIRBANKS RANCH, CALIFORNIA. 5 Guatemalan teenagers tiptoe around a Cadillac hoping to be chosen by the driver for a day of yard work in the community of multi-million-dollar homes. I made the photo from a distance as the performance unfolded. One boy hopped in the car and it sped off towards the gated enclave. The others couldn’t explain to me why their friend was chosen or much about themselves as they spoke mostly the native dialect of their birthplace and very little Spanish. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902759837-FN6UBIQ8L90VIO35DRSD/10_Filght_from_Border_Patrol.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Flight from the Border Patrol OCTOBER 30, 1990. RANCHO PEÑASQUITOS, CA. 3 men sprint away from their shack after whistles signal that U.S. Border Patrol agents are approaching the squatter’s camp. Ultimately such raids are more of a nuisance for illegal immigrant laborers who hide in the tangled chaparral brush until the all clear is given. Those who are nabbed and deported to Tijuana often return within a day or two. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902769702-HYUXQHEENVMZM4JM2JT0/11_Return_Ticket.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Return Ticket OCTOBER 30, 1990. RANCHO PENASQUITOS, CALIFORNIA. During a raid of the Rancho de los Diablos squatter’s camp, a U.S. Border Patrol agent eyes a quick cash transfer to a man in handcuffs. Sweeps are usually prompted by uneasy neighbors who live above the rent-free canyon community where hundreds of Mexican and Central American immigrants have dug in for their version of the California dream. Many find jobs in tomato fields, construction sites, car washes and restaurants. The "legal" worker who didn’t run told me the loan will help his compa catch a bus for the 40-mile return trip from Tijuana – probably in a day or two. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902772090-IYS0W0YT8XORHSFJP9XQ/12_Love_Song.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Love Song AUGUST 15, 1989. CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA. Willie Ramirez strums a corrido ballad in his hand made shack at the edge of a tomato field. He said he aches for his young wife and daughter. 2 weeks ago he left them behind in Oaxaca, Mexico to set up camp here with his father, brother and uncle. He resigned as a bank teller in Salina Cruz after his father called and insisted that, “Opportunity is in the United States”. Now Willie earns 6 times more money as a farm worker. About 4 years after this he crawled out of the fields for an even better job. Over the next 17 years I followed Willie's path to U.S. citizenship. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902778954-KN8YT3BC1GPV2CTW4N4S/13_Climbing_Higher.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Climbing Higher NOVEMBER 16, 2007. OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA. Willie Ramirez staples cedar shakes on the roof of a multi-million-dollar home near the beach in Oceanside. The former illegal immigrant farm worker qualified for amnesty under President Reagan’s 1986 Immigration Reform & Control Act. Now outside the shadow of the law, he marched out of the tomato fields and rose as a skilled craftsman in a San Diego County roofing company. He attended English classes at a church, studied U.S. history and qualified to become a naturalized American citizen. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902779397-EECQ3BW1RYUDYJT2KZY8/14_Citizen_Ramirez.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Citizen Ramirez MARCH 28, 2006. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA. Willie Ramirez cheers along with immigrants from 40 countries just after taking the oath of United States citizenship in the San Diego Convention Center. 17 years ago Willie stepped through a gap in the U.S./Mexico border fence in Tijuana. Over the years he's come to realize that his father's mantra was true: "Opportunity is in the United States". (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902784989-MQLEDYMF0JKGNTH9SQHC/15_My_Country_Now.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - My Country MARCH 28, 2006. IMPERIAL BEACH, CALIFORNIA. Willie Ramirez stands just inside his adopted country and glances back towards the boundary of his Mexican homeland. It’s the fence he stepped through as an illegal immigrant in 1989. Now, 2 hours after his oath of American allegiance, I asked Willie to pose with his newly minted citizenship certificate. "Willie, don't look at me. Think hard about your past and your future.” After about a dozen photographs I asked, “So, what were you thinking?” He replied, “I’m not going back. This is my country now.” (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902785396-FSJ49GSJEJSVB19KDORY/16_Mending_Fences.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Mending Fences MARCH 28, 2006. IMPERIAL BEACH, CALIFORNIA. After watching Willie Ramirez’ portrait session on the beach below and learning of it’s meaning, Willie is congratulated by a man whose full time job is to patch holes in the U.S./Mexico border fence. Seventeen years ago Willie illegally went through such a gap in the barrier. Two hours ago he took the oath of U.S. citizenship. For Willie and me, the handshake was yet another unexpected, unforgettable story-telling fraction of a second on The Roads Most Traveled. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902797807-PRTM70J3FUNISKBG6JHG/17_Angels_of_Devil%27s_Ranch.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Angels of Devils Ranch JULY 16, 1994. DEL MAR, CALIFORNIA. Claudia Morales, 15 and her sister Marta, 12 glide along a dirt path after a Catholic mass in an outdoor chapel. Their Mexican immigrant family lives in the Rancho de los Diablos or Devil’s Ranch squatter’s camp. It’s a makeshift community of hundreds of people at the edge of a tomato ranch and so labeled by field workers who claim they’re treated harshly. It’s also where I observed faith and cultural traditions enduring; the girl's father told me the Quinceañera 15th birthday celebration dresses were purchased at a San Diego swap meet with about 2 days wages. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539902791139-NFLP073KQE2Q2WA1MEME/18_Conflicted_Allegiance.jpg Uneasy Neighbors - Conflicted Allegiance MARCH 27, 2006. SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA. Teenagers ride atop a car during a walkout from Santa Ana High School to protest stalled immigration reform. Unable to tear the American flag, the girl later tossed it beneath the feet of hundreds of marchers who followed. Days later, school administrators refused my request to interview the girls in an attempt to understand emotions that may have temporarily overtaken them. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/product-of-mexico daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904290781-KOLKWV71NSD2XW6JUH31/01_Alejandrina%27s_Impossible_Dream.jpg Product of Mexico - Alejandrina’s Impossible Dream FEBRUARY 26, 2014. TEACAPAN, SINALOA, MEXICO. On her way to work in a pickup truck, 12-yr-old Alejandrina Castillo glances at a girl walking to school. The moment quietly reveals her ache for the classroom and growing up to be a teacher, not a farm worker. Pulled from the 3d grade she now picks chili peppers across Mexico for about $1.00/hr. She can read and write but her cousins Pedro, 8 and Jesus, 11 are on the road to being part of Mexico's next generation of illiterate farm workers. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904289604-AT3Q7YBTM8GXKR66YJO7/02_If_I_Don%27t_Work_We_Don%27t_Eat.jpg Product of Mexico - If I Don’t Work We Won’t Eat DECEMBER 4, 2013. CRISTO REY, SINALOA, MEXICO. 12-yr-old Alejandrina Castillo was forced to trade her school backpack for a jalapeño bucket. With permission of her mother and extended family I intermittently chronicled her nomadic life in the fields, at home and on a long migration across Mexico. Over the period of one year, I never heard Ale complain or shirk devotion to her mother, her baby brother or her life-saving responsibility to work hard and fast. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904302379-V37K0B2411FDL8O1U6P6/03_Teamwork.jpg Product of Mexico - Teamwork FEBRUARY 24, 2014. CRISTO REY, SINALOA, MEXICO. Ermelinda Castillo nurses 1-yr-old Sergio while picking jalapeño peppers with her daughter Alejandrina, 12. Alejandrina is a super fast picker and on a good day she picks 360 pounds and earns about $10.20. Her mother and 14-yr-old brother Fidel aren't as quick but their combined earnings are enough for food, rent, travel expenses and little more. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904303437-RWFTOZGI3D2GDLGCCUKZ/04_A_Child%27s_Burden.jpg Product of Mexico - A Child's Burden JULY 8, 2013. SAN CRISTOBAL, GUANAJUATO, MEXICO. A boy carries a 60-pound arpillo full of jalapeño peppers through a field about 1 mi. east of former President Vicente Fox's hacienda. 12-yr-old Alejandrina Castillo, other children and their parents pick chili peppers from this field that my reporter Richard Marosi and I traced to a packinghouse in León that exports to the United States. Here and across Mexico experts estimate there are at least 100,000 children working in agriculture to help their families survive. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904311403-4YC3G6U9QR618GLTCAEQ/05_Aching_Back.jpg Product of Mexico - Aching Back FEBRUARY 24, 2014. CRISTO REY, SINALOA, MEXICO. 9-yr-old Pedro Vasquez rubs his sore back during a morning of picking chili peppers. Field bosses know it's illegal for children under the age of 15 to be working. Some look the other way, admitting the hardship of Mexico's non-living-wage rate. I had been photographing in this field with permission of a farm labor contractor but 30 minutes later I was told to leave by a ranch representative. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904311332-4M5HFY90NF902LWJEPCQ/06_Wounded_Child_Worker.jpg Product of Mexico - Wounded Child Worker SEPTEMBER 19, 2013. ARANDAS, JALISCO, MEXICO. Alejandrina Castillo, 12 winces as her mother, Ermelinda, wipes a crust of blood and dirt from her wounded foot. This morning while she was clearing a tomatillo field Alejandrina’s 14-yr-old brother accidentally swung his machete deep into her heel, missing the Achilles tendon by a fraction of an inch. Ermelinda made the decision not to take her to a doctor. After gently cleansing it with cold water she bandaged Alejandrina’s foot with her apron. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904324453-Z5MKGNPVFY6SPTPNMBKN/07_Carrying_His_Weight.jpg Product of Mexico - Carrying His Weight FEBRUARY 24, 2014. CRISTO REY, SINALOA, MEXICO. A little boy bites his tongue and hurries along with red ripe Roma tomatoes that probably weigh nearly as much as he does. He said he earned 10 cents per bucketful that he picked. Unlike most days on this project, today I managed to photograph for an hour without interruption, interrogation, detention, threats or expulsion. Tomato vines were over my head so my cameras weren't noticed from a distance. Also in my favor was the time of day - field bosses had already gone home on this late afternoon. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904321211-ITEI8X5GGAFIJVF6QUZQ/08_Product_of_Mexico.jpg Product of Mexico - Product of Mexico MAY 26, 2014. SAN MARCOS, CALIFORNIA. Roma tomatoes from Mexico sit in the produce section of a Southern California Walmart Superstore. The multi-billion-dollar corporation sets stringent growing standards in Sinaloa, Mexico to insure that their imported vegetables are as advertised: "Fresh, Quality Produce". However laborers in the fields and in housing camps across Mexico showed me conditions that they felt were deplorable. I recorded one shade house picker telling me that his Mexican farm bosses "…work us like animals and they treat us like animals." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904330544-ZPPA3MTFVENGWKVXWTHY/09_Preparing_Supper.jpg Product of Mexico - Preparing Supper MARCH 28, 2014. VILLA JUAREZ, SINALOA, MEXICO. On a handmade table in her dilapidated room at Campo San Jose, Marcelina Felipe Cruz, 32, slices tomatoes that she purloined from a shade house. She earns about $1/hr. picking for Agricola Porvenir, a major exporter of Roma tomatoes to Walmart stores in the United States. Her husband managed to slip me past the gate guard with my tripod wrapped in a blanket and my cameras in a shopping bag. He wanted me to see the harsh conditions that his family and fellow workers endure. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904332524-3BD6YRSUU30AJL796V3N/10_Farmworker%27s_Stable.jpg Product of Mexico - Farmworker Stables MARCH 28, 2014. VILLA JUAREZ, SINALOA, MEXICO. Each 12x12 room in the long, stable-like buildings at Campo San Jose houses as many as six people. The family that accepted my request to photograph their room said thieves jump the partitions to pilfer food, rats scurry atop the rusting metal walls; noise, stink and smoke drift from neighboring cubicles. I stood on the top level of a concrete bunk bed (no mattresses are provided) to make this still photo and a video panorama. With my camera on a tripod and my head high in the sweltering gable, I peered down at the backstory, the energy, the roots of the produce we eat. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904344202-784F4QH17E9EA6ULGZ1R/11_Toeing_the_Poverty_Line.jpg Product of Mexico - Toeing the Poverty Line DECEMBER 6, 2013. TEACAPAN, SINALOA, MEXICO. Wearing shoes as worn and soiled as their feet, a family of migrant pickers stands on the side of a tomato field. Tens of thousands of campesinos migrate to Sinaloa’s coastal “salad bowl” from remote, impoverished pueblos in the mountains of Guerrero and Michoacan states. Here they find steady work on huge vegetable farms. However wages of $8 - $10/day leave little or no disposable income for sturdy shoes. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904344706-I4FALW3EGFQ0VGDI07MZ/12_Bathing_in_the_Canal.jpg Product of Mexico - Bathing in the Canal MARCH 29, 2014. VILLA BENITO JUAREZ, SINALOA, MEXICO. On the muddy bank of an irrigation canal outside the Campo San José migrant farm worker camp, Maria Vasquez, 22 bathes her daughter with the cold murky water. She says there’s insufficient water in the camp showers and laundry room so she and hundreds of others wash themselves and their clothes in the ditches after work. Everyone in her laborer camp picks Roma tomatoes for export to the United States. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904355578-AJ0PRQVNNUX4A54Z8PZX/13_Kite_Flyer.jpg Product of Mexico - Kite Flyer DECEMBER 10, 2013. GUASAVE, SINALOA, MEXICO. 7-yr-old Udiel Castro tugs his shopping bag kite into the breeze at Campo Sacramento. While I was admiring the boy's ingenuity, a security patrolman drove up and interrogated me. I’d been searching for a way to illustrate the camp's bad reputation of limiting worker’s freedom to come and go, and I was locked out. His distrust of me eased when a woman inside confirmed that I had identified myself earlier and she didn’t mind me photographing her friend’s son. Better yet, we all agreed that the clever child did well to ease his boredom while parents were away in the company tomato and cucumber growing houses. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904348837-ZEOR83ZKFGQFRRD9ZG8T/14_Getting_Ready.jpg Product of Mexico - Getting Ready FEBRUARY 23, 2014. TEACAPAN, SINALOA, MEXICO. While looking in the shard of a broken mirror, 12-year-old Alejandrina Castillo dabs on lip gloss before walking to the Sunday market. Her fingers are thickened, her nails worn and dirty from a week of picking jalapeños. She told me she wanted to look pretty like the local school girls she sees on her commute to and from work. As a father with a grown daughter I remembered those moments when a maturing girl does her best to claim adolescence. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904358375-52D6VQPMWJNN4HZ4ZRX6/15_Harvest_Ledger.jpg Product of Mexico - Harvest Ledger MAY 16, 2014. TEACAPAN, SINALOA, MEXICO. Alejandrina's name is #10 on a daily picking ledger. It was cast into a trash fire as she and her family disposed of unneeded possessions before their move to another state. Each line in the square denotes one 60-lb. sack of chili peppers. On the day noted in the book she picked 6 bags. At $1.70 each, 12-yr-old Alejandrina earned $10.20 for the 10-hour day. In a few hours she and a dozen other migrant workers and all their worldly possessions will be piled into one pickup truck. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904363824-HF5YCN6EVVWJPUL6RO8W/16_Migrant_Daughter.jpg Product of Mexico - Migrant Daughter MAY 17, 2014. Near GUADALAJARA, JALISCO, MEXICO. Alejandrina Castillo, 12 catnaps in the back of a pickup truck as it speeds along a toll road in the state of Jalisco. The green plastic arpillos behind her will be used to bag the next chili pepper harvest but now they're stuffed with everything she and her migrant family owns. The 14-hr. journey across Mexico is taking Alejandrina and her mother to their third temporary home in the past year. She hasn’t been to school or back to her impoverished home pueblo the hills of Guerrero for 3 years. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904365124-KBJF0LCXIR1RU7942H3S/17_Chasing_the_Harvest.jpg Product of Mexico - Chasing the Harvest MAY 17, 2014. LEON, GUANAJUATO, MEXICO. Alejandrina Castillo is hidden and probably sleeping amid people and bags of household items in an overloaded pickup truck. In the very back an exhausted father and his son slump over a rope that keeps them from tumbling out. Across Mexico scores of migrant men, women and children farm workers are killed or injured in crashes of trucks like this. I hired Enoc Toledo, a deportee from California to drive my rental car so I could photograph and shoot videos from the car and in the truck with Alejandrina. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1539904372609-UIYV5ZIF6MQ7EDIKUNQZ/18_End_of_the_Road.jpg Product of Mexico - End of the Road MAY 17, 2014. BARRETOS, GUANAJUATO, MEXICO. The sun sets outside a brick barn that will be Alejandrina's home for the next few months. After the all-night journey she and the other weary migrant workers hastily dumped their possessions in the dirt, scavenged for firewood and made cooking fires. The barn has no electricity, running water, toilets or beds. It’s completely empty. In spite of the extraordinary hardships, tomorrow morning Alejandrina will pick jalapeños for a packer who ships the peppers to the United States. Mexico's export produce industry is booming but its indigenous labor force still clings to the bottom rung of the economic ladder. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/without-a-country daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427367296-AB1K1B58L2OJJ5BCVQAT/01_One_Way_Bridge.jpg Without a Country - One Way Bridge JULY 9, 2012. MATAMOROS, MEXICO. Deportees march across the Rio Grande river on the Gateway International Bridge from Brownsville, Texas to Matamoros, Mexico. Soon they’ll be warned by Group Beta, a Mexican migrant safety force about the dangers they are about to face. Matamoros is a city dominated by drug cartel operatives who prey upon these newly homeless Mexicans who haven't been in their own country for years or in some cases for decades. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427366044-CNZ98MT3YK45UVHEGHQS/02_Freedom_Lost.jpg Without a Country - Freedom Lost JULY 9, 2012. MATAMOROS, MEXICO. Deportees wait quietly in line to register with Mexican authorities. Each will receive a sandwich from a church group and the address of a shelter. Most leave behind years of family, friends, homes and jobs in the U.S. Their immediate worry is fear or drug cartel kidnappers who prowl the streets of this northeast Mexico border city. Cartel thugs prey upon deportees because they have relatives with money in the U.S. A priest said, "Deportees are like walking ATM machines". (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427372231-MCFFQ01JZAT4CRR3Y0SF/03_Borderline_Security.jpg Without a Country - Borderline Security JULY 9, 2012. MATAMOROS, MEXICO. Razor wire tops the high fence around a church run shelter where deported migrants mill about on a hot and humid evening. Late last year 15 men and boys were dragged away from here at gunpoint, kidnapped for ransom demanded from relatives in the U.S. In spite of the security fortifications Serafin Salazar, a former car mechanic from El Monte, California, said "I feel like something bad can happen at any time." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427373944-JVCWCX4RNDY4VNRA93XN/04_Far_From_Home.jpg Without a Country - Far From Home SEPTEMBER 21, 2011. MEXICALI, MEXICO Fresh off the deportee bus, 5 men sit on a curb a few yards south of the U.S. border fence. It's 2 am in a strange town. A few days ago they were arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in Texas, then flown more than 600 miles to El Centro, California, then bussed to the Calexico deportation gate. The new tactic is aimed at disrupting long-established illegal migration patterns and leaves these exhausted men uncertain about what to do next. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427381054-VRSGYYRA1TRW8IYHI3TS/05_No_Vacancy.jpg Without a Country - No Vacancy JANUARY 15, 2012. MEXICALI, MEXICO. By 8 pm the upstairs hallway of the Hotel of the Deported Migrant is carpeted with people. A cell phone illuminates one man exchanging texts from the U.S. A Mexicali businessman offers free meals and a floor in the formerly abandoned hotel. All he asks of his guests is no booze or drugs and to help maintain the place. Everyone is assigned a daily shift to request donations from motorists in line at the nearby Calexico Port of Entry. Each person can keep 50% of their cash collection. But work outside the hotel’s management is all but impossible. A deported veterinary hospital assistant from Los Angeles told me, "I feel like an illegal in my own country because I don't have papers. It's hard, too hard." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) -- See video of Hotel of the Deported Migrant on the Lectures page. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427384698-LITSKWR9YL5VCW77JHRN/06_Broken_Dreams.jpg Without a Country - Broken Dreams NOVEMBER 23, 2011. MEXICALI, MEXICO. Raul Calderon grips the U.S./Mexico border fence and talks about his wife and 4 children in his Riverside, California home of 18 years. About 2 months ago he was deported after a raid of his construction work site. He's now penniless. He finds shelter but no joy at the Hotel of the Deported Migrant. "It's sad for a father like me to be alone, thinking about broken hearts, broken dreams." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) -- See and hear Raul in Hotel of the Deported Migrant on the Lectures page. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427385529-LLVA8BBOVJBOM7O8BOLE/07_Magic_Light.jpg Without a Country - Magic Light DECEMBER 3, 2011. RIVERSIDE, CA. Raul Calderon's 7-year old daughter shines her “magic flashlight” on a kitchen counter in her apartment. Her father was deported 2 months ago. After helping her mom make tamales that she sells to pay the bills she lit up the invisible messages printed all over the house: “I love dad”. Dad did return home after walking nearly 95 miles from Mexicali to Alpine, California where on his 7th day without food or clean water, he hitchhiked the rest of the way home to Riverside. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427394001-JSYIS2I5AM0KUSJY9Y2Q/08_Unholy_Night.jpg Without a Country - Unholy Night OCTOBER 11, 2011. NOGALES, MEXICO. Honduran citizen Alejandro Maldonado, age 47 beds town atop a grave in a cemetery near the border. He's among hundreds who have overwhelmed Mexico's ability to shelter newly homeless deportees. Maldonado says he worked 4 years on a Virginia apple orchard and is desperate to return. After several failed attempts to jump the line, he said his next scheme will be to sign on as a "drug mule" and carry a backpack of contraband across the Arizona desert with cartel smugglers. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427393597-RNBFUQNJSEHIBSLOISU1/09_Looking_for_a_Way_Home.jpg Without a Country - Looking for a Way Home OCTOBER 12, 2011. NOGALES, MEXICO Sliding nervously across the rails, Luis Luna, 19 has only seconds to either crawl into the undercarriage of a railroad freight car or get away. He’s looking for a ride across the border to Arizona. At age 3 his Mexican mother brought him to Los Angeles. At 19 a traffic stop revealed he was undocumented. As a deportee he spent 18 months in a country where he had no family or friends. The way back home nearly killed him. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) See and hear Luis’ story on my Lectures page. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427399669-L2358JL14NP6MZBHQRM3/10_Lifeline.jpg Without a Country - Lifeline AUGUST 19, 2004. TIJUANA, MEXICO. Desperate for a bite, Jose de Jesus Torres casts a fishing line into the twilight from a bluff above the Pacific Ocean 3 miles south of the U.S./Mexico border. Spark plugs provide the weight, a soda bottle the reel. After 10 years living illegally in the U.S., de Jesus was deported. Because he doesn't have a Mexican identification card or work permit he can't legally work south of the border. Without a passport or visa he can't return to his mechanic's job in Los Angeles. Tonight he came up empty and went to sleep without eating. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427399834-BTH2WTJG7CP8QKPUM49C/11_Ten_Years_in_Line.jpg Without a Country - Ten Years in Line MAY 28, 2008. TIJUANA, MEXICO. Stuck in the daily crawl to the U.S. border gate, Heather Suarez takes a call from her husband about their daughter who woke up sick. It's 4:25 am. 10 years ago Heather married Evaristo, a thoroughbred horse trainer from Mexico who worked not far from her Kentucky home. With 3 kids and a house, Evaristo applied for a spousal visa at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. It was denied and he was banned from reentering the U.S. for 10 years. Vowing to comply, he's now a stay-at-home-dad and Heather commutes to work in San Diego. She says of family life in Tijuana, "10 years will be a long time in this hell hole". (Photographs by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427407697-0O6OKL9VL4ODYQQ79CRP/12_Deported_Veteran.jpg Without a Country - Deported Veteran FEBRUARY 16, 2012. ROSARITO BEACH, MEXICO. Former U.S. Army Airborne infantry soldier Hector Barajas poses in his tiny rented room with the uniform he wore as a soldier. After 6 years of service he was honorably discharged with several awards and commendations. But he struggled to readjust to civilian life. After pleading no contest for firing a weapon at a car his green card was revoked and he was deported. In Mexico he dug in and founded the Deported Veterans Support House to help others like himself. In 2017 California Governor Jerry Brown pardoned him. A year later he took the oath of U.S. citizenship in San Diego. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427410019-NPOLP5XU60SAHM0L3HI6/13_Cross_Border_Embrace.jpg Without a Country - Cross-Border Embrace IMPERIAL BEACH, CA. JANUARY 4, 2009. Fernando Orozco and his wife Marta Ramos hug through the iron rails of the U.S/Mexico border fence. Orozco is a legal U.S. resident who works as a meat cutter in a Santa Monica, California supermarket. His wife is a Mexican citizen living in Tijuana. Personal borderline moments like this were restricted in the coming years. Except for infrequent and carefully orchestrated reunions, Border Patrol agents prohibited anyone from approaching U.S. side of the beachside barrier. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427418046-QZUUSNWKRV3DG3KK1RDL/14_Separation_Anxiety.jpg Without a Country - Separation Anxiety MARCH 31, 2007. SAN YSIDRO, CALIFORNIA. United in their disbelief, 16-yr-old Leslie Munoz, with her brother Marcos, 13 visit their parents at the Tijuana border fence. Abel and Zulma Munoz illegally entered the U.S. 18 years ago, raised 3 children and advanced in their jobs. 2 weeks ago they were arrested for visa violations and taken from the house they owned in San Diego. When I visited the home, Leslie had assumed the parenting of her siblings by correcting homework, helping with dinner, sorting clothes and leading tearful bedside prayers. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427420421-15XTFLAHCIW1BCMKJBIZ/15_Stress_Revealed.jpg Without a Country - Stress Revealed OCTOBER 28, 2011. ATHENS, GEORGIA. Miriam Hernandez, 16 wipes her tears and lifts her mattress to show where she hides the cash from waitress and house cleaning jobs - next to a photo of her late father. Her dad was killed in a work accident in Georgia and her illegal immigrant stepfather self-deported to El Salvador. Now the high school junior endures the responsibilities of supporting her handicapped mother and 2 younger siblings. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427426875-DAGT3WG04NKWV8YU401N/16_Daddy%27s_Home.jpg Without a Country - Daddy's Home MAY 17, 2011. LUMPKIN, GEORGIA. After 19 months apart, Emily Guzman and her son Logan reunite just hours after Pedro Guzman was released from a federal immigration detention center. Through tears and laughs she cried out, "I'm never going to let you go!" The previous day was an emotional courtroom hearing that I was not allowed to photograph. Today a federal judge ruled that the illegal Guatemalan immigrant should return to his family. Under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, he was granted U.S. residency status. In 2018 the man who came to the America almost 30 years ago as an infant became a citizen. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540427429670-E3XNPO7WG6GOYCE6STKR/17_A_Blessed_Ending.jpg Without a Country - A Blessed Ending MAY 17, 2011. LUMPKIN, GEORGIA. Kneeling in prayer with parents and grandparents, 4-yr-old Logan Guzman stares at his father as if he was about to disappear. The boy was 2 1/2 when immigration officers handcuffed and swept his dad out the front door before dawn. Today a judge freed Pedro Guzman from federal detention to return home. This was a complicated visa violation as Guzman's mother fled strife-torn Guatemala with him when he was an infant. As an adult he lost that refugee visa status when his mother unexpectedly returned to Guatemala. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/the-new-foreign-aid daily 0.75 2018-10-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855421984-6Q7KS1MVJ70W9VFA5NJT/01_Aid_for_an_Old_Hand.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Aid for an Old Hand AUGUST 22, 2005. PANINDICUARO, OAXACA, MEXICO. Guadalupe Vidales, 74 kisses a money order just delivered by motorcycle courier from her son in California. She's the last of generations to reside in the old adobe house where she was born. As a subsistence farmer all her life, she lost part of a finger in a work accident. For 10's-millions of other Mexicans, remittances from relatives in the U.S. and delivered directly to the needy have become The New Foreign Aid. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855421330-89TN6VPUC02WHK9CK2CT/02_Golden_Dreams.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Golden Dreams AUGUST 11, 2005. LOS ANGELES, CA. Isidro Mata Ortiz, 25 polishes the golden arches on W. Slauson Ave. 10 years ago he illegally crossed into California to be a farm worker in the Central Valley. Now he hopes to become a manager at McDonald’s. Making better than minimum wage he’s more able than ever to remit some of his wages to his family in Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855423156-AT8RQVODY8Z3DDTIG3R7/03_Follow_the_Money.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Follow the Money AUGUST 21, 2005. LOS ANGELES, CA. Isidro Mata Ortiz, 25 puts his signature on a $300.00 check at the Mexico Express money transfer office. His bi-monthly remittance is destined for family in rural Mexico. Mata and Mexico Express officers approved my request to physically accompany this and other checks to their destinations in rural Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855424487-EMMGAJZ0FA8YCMAULVWH/04_Security_Check.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Security Check AUGUST 22, 2005. ZACUPU, MICHOACAN, MEXICO. At a Mexico Express money transfer office, motorcycle delivery driver Orlando Tapia Pineda, 24 hides dozens of remittance checks under his jacket. "I'm always worried about robberies or accidents." Yesterday in Los Angeles, CA, Isidro Mata Ortiz signed one of these checks. It’ll take 3 hours to drive it to his wife and family. 5-days-a-week, Tapia delivers about 70 remittance checks to small towns and ranches. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855426980-2Y9O7AIZNNEYFQ3T5TM5/05_Pointing_the_Way.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Pointing the Way AUGUST 22, 2005. MICHOACAN, MEXICO. Ignacio Perez, 72 points the way for remittance check delivery rider Orlando Tapia Pineda. Tapia said his route to pueblos and remote ranches connects families in Mexico to their working kin in the U.S. "Once I had to read a personal letter to an old woman. My job is not only to bring the money but I also deliver emotional feelings to a lot of people." Before we sped away the horseman said his 4 sons in California and Illinois remit $100/month to him. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855427526-3TCJUB827ZJKEK1W87N0/06_Remittance_Delivered.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Remittance Delivered AUGUST 22, 2005. PANINDICUARO, MICHOACAN, MEXICO. Money earned at McDonald's restaurant in Los Angeles is delivered to Isidro's wife, Angelica on Calle Obregon in central Mexico. Isidro Mata Ortiz, the fast-food employee, is the 3d generation born in this house where his mother, brothers and wife live. The bi- monthly remittances pay the bills, enable his brother to attend private high school and for buy seed and fertilizer on their 2.5 acre corn and strawberry farm. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855431207-Z8NYFLME1K1JFC8SSBKW/07_Staying_on_Course.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Staying on Course AUGUST 22, 2005. MICHOACAN, MEXICO. Orlando Tapia Pineda, wobbles through a pueblo between Zacupa and Panindicuaro. The remittance checks he'll deliver today went by air from Los Angeles to Morelia, Michoacan then by truck to Zacupa. I rode with him through the open countryside, across streams and on muddy paths to the gates and doors of dozens of homes. Tapia said, "One time I handed a woman a check with a letter from someone she hadn't heard from in 12 years. She began to cry." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855432289-NQTXWA7UFEQY9HXH5Q58/08_The_Old_and_the_Young.jpg The New Foreign Aid - The Old and the Young AUGUST 22, 2005. AGUANUATO, MICHOACAN, MEXICO. Orlando Tapia Pineda delivers a money order in rural Michoacan. Remittances from millions of Mexican citizens working in the U.S. are often to homes like this that are occupied only by grandparents and grandchildren. Salvador Viveros, manager of the Michoacan office of Mexico Express recalled, "I once delivered to Rancho San Antonio and a 14-yr-old boy came out and asked if I could bring his father home with one of his letters." (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855436683-FHYMAFPLW4BCUNQKZ8G0/09_The_Dotted_Line.jpg The New Foreign Aid - The Dotted Line AUGUST 22, 2005. PIRITZIO, MICHOACAN, MEXICO. Maria Consuelo Hernandez, 42 signs for her $100 remittance check at the home where she and her husband are raising the youngest of their 12 children. The family invested $2500 to hire a smuggler to get their oldest, 21-yr-old Jesus, smuggled into California. Their son tries to send about $200/month from wages earned in North Hollywood. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855435889-JDQZW868SH06T5OY4K61/10_Lettuce_Harvest.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Lettuce Harvest JULY 12, 2004. SALINAS, CALIFORNIA. Erasmo Alonzo deftly whittles outer leaves from a head of romain lettuce with his razor sharp stainless steel knife. At 59, he's the oldest worker in the fields where years of stoop labor can cripple a much younger man. As one of Mexico’s millions of foreign workers, he's been sending money home to his wife in Oaxaca, Mexico for the past 8 years. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855437550-5RSUPCEHIDFITZ0YU162/11_A_Picker%27s_Hand.jpg The New Foreign Aid - A Picker's Hand JULY 12, 2004. SALINAS, CALIFORNIA. Erasmo Alonzo's blade hand is worn and splintered from years of harvesting fresh lettuce from central California's Salinas Valley. He labors 6 days a week to support his family in Ayoquesco, Oaxaca, Mexico. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855439742-ZQQN3C8KDNYYPS9CDVG5/12_The_Picker%27s_Wife.jpg The New Foreign Aid - The Picker's Wife MARCH 22, 2005. AYOQUESCO, OAXACA, MEXICO. Catalina Sanchez, a 46-yr-old dynamo with an easy laugh and a brilliant idea fills a basket with tender young nopal cactus leaves. With years of remittance money from her husband's lettuce picking job in California, she bought acres of land and planted thousands of cactus plants. Catalina then founded the Women Bottlers of Ayoquezco Nopal, a cooperative with the united dream of bringing their men back home from the U.S. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855442790-GBTEYYXHBKHNPG4EZ366/13_Circle_of_Friends.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Circle of Friends MARCH 22, 2005. AYOQUESCO, OAXACA, MEXICO. Members of the Women Bottlers of Ayoquesco Nopal slice and dice fresh nopal cactus leaves. Their plan is to eventually chop and bottle the nopal in a factory they're building on the edge of the fields. Seed money for the land, and equipment came from remittances sent home by family members working in California. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855443167-Q72HD49TYPGGC2E2GMBI/14_Her_Dream_in_a_Bottle.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Her Dream in a Bottle MARCH 22, 2005. AYOQUESCO, OAXACA, MEXICO. Erasmo Alonzo, the lettuce picker from Salinas, California is home for good. His wife Catalina Sanchez invested years of her husband's remittance money to create what she once dreamed would hold the key to the future: organically grown nopal, bottled in brine and ready for export. 2 yrs. later the bottling factory opened. The dream of enabling Erasmo and many of the pueblo's migrant laborers to thrive at home has come true. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855445496-YO15O4NXYLP8UT63ISYL/15_Field_House.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Field House AUGUST 16, 1989. CARLSBAD, CALIFORNIA. Wilfredo Ramirez Sr. boils chicken outside to his sleeping shelter in North San Diego County. He insisted I pull up a tomato crate and join him for dinner. The soup was delicious and he never spoke a word about what looked to me like primitive living conditions. Instead he invited me to visit his real home in Mexico. I took him up on it - several times. Over the next 2 decades I documented how remittances from California had vastly improved his family’s life in Oaxaca. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1540855446396-4EA20QCU6MQR8S93RGQJ/16_Remittance_House.jpg The New Foreign Aid - Remittance House MAY 3, 2006. TONALA, OAXACA, MEXICO. Wilfredo Ramirez Sr. age 70 is now retired and gets around town like generations of his family always have. I met him 18 years ago outside his brush covered plastic hovel in a Carlsbad, California tomato field. Remittances from decades as a migrant farm worker have enabled Wilfredo to replace his tiny adobe house and wood burning kitchen with concrete, block and modern appliances. His 3 children crawled out of that tomato field too. They have homes and good jobs in California. On the heels of the family patriarch, remittances and savings are funding construction of their 3-story Mexican dream house. (Photograph by Don Bartletti) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/the-fire-within daily 0.75 2022-11-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116566997-ZLR85KC1EWJMP65THBRJ/01_Firestorm.jpg The Fire Within - Firestorm OCTOBER 22, 2007. ESCONDIDO, CALIFORNIA. A firefighter shields his face with a shovel during one of 9 simultaneous wildfires that raged out of control across San Diego County for 15 days. 1,800 homes were lost. 369,000 acres were charred, including a huge swath of the U.S/Mexico border. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116566577-PUPEM7EL1YNZJ1YMW6C3/02_Something_Lost_Something_Found.jpg The Fire Within - Something Lost - Something Found OCTOBER 25, 2007. RANCHO BERNARDO, CALIFORNIA. In the ruins of her childhood home, Tress Goodwin, 28 clutches a coffee cup once used by her late grandmother. The Stanford University medical student rushed home to a neighborhood that was completely wiped out by the Witch Creek firestorm. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116572227-FPJJJTKATV49ZOOZ5JTQ/03_Trail_of_Tribulation.jpg The Fire Within - Trail of Tribulation NOVEMBER 5, 2007. BARRETT JUNCTION, CALIFORNIA. A once clandestine smuggler's footpath lays stripped of its chaparral cover on a fire-scorched hillside just north of the U.S./Mexico border. The wind driven Harris Fire roared through here days ago overcoming 22 illegal immigrants attempting to cross into United States. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116573235-9IICZJJDJ1Q1U5S2UT9J/04_Remains_of_the_Dead.jpg The Fire Within - Remains of the Dead NOVEMBER 5, 2007. BARRETT JUNCTION, CALIFORNIA. Rafael Larranza Hernandez, founder of the Border Angels volunteer rescue group carries the charred backpacks and melted shoes of people burned to death when the Harris Fire swept over a network of smuggler trails. Here on the California side of the U.S./Mexico border 6 were killed, 16 were severely injured. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116577808-O7TCSH0W9LUZD98RWH1M/05_Your_Father_is_Here.jpg The Fire Within - Your Father is Here DECEMBER 19, 2007. HWY 94, 1.5 MILES WEST OF TECATE ROAD, CALIFORNIA. Concepción Peralta kneels before 3 crosses he placed on the side of San Diego County Highway 94 in memory of his daughter, her husband and their neighbor. All perished together the day the Harris Ranch wildfire trapped them on the California side of the U.S./Mexico border. When Concepción began to sob, I stepped away. My audio recorder remained on the ground next to him at the moment he cried out, "Arelé my daughter. Your father is here, Ariel my daughter". (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) See video - The Fire Within - in the Lectures page. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116578260-ZSYIRDXG47529RUASY2L/06_Coming_Home.jpg The Fire Within - Coming Home JANUARY 6, 2008. MAZATLAN, GUERRERO, MEXICO. As a van carrying the body of his daughter Arelé is followed by mourners, Concepcion Peralta can’t bear to face what he’s anticipated for more than 2 months. His only daughter has come home. Arelé, her husband Ruben and their friend Lourdes were killed in a firestorm on November 3, 2007 along the U.S./Mexico border in San Diego County. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116582115-4D6USUE0IOBWG95B7BMK/07_Mourning.jpg The Fire Within - Mourning JANUARY 6, 2008. MAZATLAN, GUERRERO, MEXICO. Family members collapse on the coffin of Ruben Santos in the house where he was born 26 years ago. Ruben and his wife Arelé perished in an explosive wildfire while they walked through tinder dry brush on the U.S./Mexico border. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116583135-9GZEK1L3H5VQWX066YSA/08_Vigil_for_Lourdes.jpg The Fire Within - Vigil for Lourdes JANUARY 7, 2008. MAZATLAN, GUERRERO, MEXICO. Family and friends of 21-year-old Lourdes Eugenio Tadeo sit with her casket in the dirt floor home where she was born. In October 2007, two years after graduating from high school, Lourdes and two friends pooled their savings and hired a guide to help them cross the border into California east of San Diego. An uncontrolled wildfire trapped them in rugged terrain and killed all three. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116588058-VI8ELBSDMPJJXGO4JNWU/09_Funeral_March.jpg The Fire Within - Funeral March JANUARY 7, 2008. MAZATLAN, GUERRERO, MEXICO. At the start of a slow procession through his pueblo, Concepción Peralta carries a home made cross he will place on his daughter's grave. A band from Arelé's high school prepares to march behind the pickup truck. It’s been 9 weeks since Arele’s remains were recovered from the ashes of a wildfire on the U.S./Mexico border. Children carrying pails of burning incense imperfectly masked the faint odor of decomposing remains. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116586838-6Q0RK3KY9N3OSW5QIASY/10_Saddness_and_Anger.jpg The Fire Within - Grief and Anger JANUARY 7, 2008. MAZATLAN, GUERRERO, MEXICO. Peralta’s cousin Felipe Sanchez said generations of families in this farming pueblo have relied on remittances from expatriate citizens. “If not for the United States we’d be poor here. Before we had shacks here. Now we have good houses. The United States is supporting Mexico. Don’t ever forget that. Without this help what would we do? Mexico doesn’t give us anything. Mexico’s president is worthless. The place that helps us is the United States. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116589603-OODZY3Z00YE1XHXQUVEZ/11_Lost_Soles.jpg The Fire Within - Lost Soles NOVEMBER 5, 2007. BARRETT JUNCTION, CALIFORNIA. 22 people escaped the Harris Ranch fire with severe burns. 6 more perished here on the California side of the border. For the next year I chronicled the recovery of 2 men who hobbled out of the smoldering disaster. The photo essay and video reveal life saving medical care, extraordinary cost, and the unexpected fire that remained within Nicholas Beltran and Moises Ramirez. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116592170-8DD0WYF490FSKCX4LDXY/12_Life_Saver.jpg The Fire Within - Life Saver NOVEMBER 15, 2007. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA. Fire survivors where evacuated to the U.C.S.D. Medical Center. Chief burn surgeon Dr. Bruce Potenza was hesitant to grant me access, fearing public backlash to unrecoverable medical expenses for illegal immigrants. He eventually agreed that the consequences of his work and the lives of those he was saving should not be hidden. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) Please see video "The Fire Within" on the Lectures & Videos page of this website. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116593844-RFYIHL0YVGZO2JLLL14N/13_Recovery.jpg The Fire Within - Recovery DECEMBER 11, 2007. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA. Therapist Sarah Hershel consoles Nicholas Beltran at the University of California San Diego Burn Center. Beltran had been in a medically induced coma for 6 weeks. “ When I woke up I looked at myself….I didn’t want to live." On October 21 his sister died next to him as they tried to hide from the wildfire. They were trapped while returning to jobs in San Diego County after their father's funeral in Mexico. “Then the flames came and we threw ourselves into the water. My sister Guadalupe, she screamed, maybe twice when she was burning.” (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116594403-5T5UXY6RADA7Q2H1AX5B/14_Release_Day.jpg The Fire Within - Release Day DECEMBER 18, 2007. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA. Nicholas Beltran walks through the University of California San Diego Medical Center on the day he was released. Chief burn surgeon Dr. Bruce Potenza told me, “The hospital will treat anybody who requires emergency medical services.” He also reviewed documents that showed the cost of Beltran's 2 months of medical treatment was nearly $1 million. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116597607-8V52402K5CRUPUV0XMPT/15_Hiding.jpg The Fire Within - Hiding MARCH 16, 2008. OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA. Three months after his release from the hospital, Nicholas Beltran was turned away from his former job at a cactus nursery. He said his work papers were lost in the fire - and he's frustrated: “Do you think any of the people who have legal papers want to work for $5.75? Not one. They want to earn $30, $20 an hour and up. At all the nurseries I worked at not one American worker. I don’t have papers. One day immigration will pick me up and throw me out. I’ll be living in fear. You can't live free if you have to live in hiding.” (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116599609-CNZ7C8M5NLU8DAGF90SY/16_Therapy.jpg The Fire Within - Therapy NOVEMBER 19, 2007. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA U.C.S.D. Medical Center therapist Allison Helm encourages Moises Ramirez to keep flexing his burned hands. A month ago he was evacuated from the Harris Ranch wildfire on the U.S./Mexico border. Recovery progressed rapidly, fueled by a burning desire to resume his journey from Mexico to his brother’s restaurant in Oregon. Medical treatment over 22 days totaled $160,000. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116599754-NY2F3TM63PB4LV47R9RX/17_Facing_the_Fire.jpg The Fire Within - Facing the Fire CORVALLIS, OREGON. JULY 16, 2008. Both of Moises Ramirez's hands were severely burned to the bone in wildfire on the U.S./Mexico border. Now he cooks with fire and dreams of saving enough to buy a house in Jalisco, Mexico. Ironically his internship as a dishwasher was more painful; water irritated his burn grafts more than flair ups from the gas range. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b9aff9570e8022b9026568c/1541116601929-QT7YYN4T75IJ1PS7KOSN/18_The_Reward.jpg The Fire Within - The Reward PHILOMATH, OREGON. MARCH 22, 2008. Moises Ramirez divides up his restaurant wages to send home to family in Jalisco, Mexico. Elastic gloves keep burn scars from swelling on hands that were broiled when he shielded his face from a wall of flames. “We were surrounded on all sides. There was nowhere to run. We screamed at God to please come and help us.“ Blinded by tornados of ash and tormented by thirst he sipped urine from his swollen hands. Ramirez was rescued 10 hours later on Hwy 94, 3 miles north of the U.S./Mexico border. (Photograph by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) https://donbartlettiphotography.com/press-brine daily 0.75 2025-05-06 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/terms-brine daily 0.75 2025-05-06 https://donbartlettiphotography.com/privacy-brine daily 0.75 2025-05-06