In 2011 I had an exhibition of my Nicaraguan Refugees photographs for the Amnesty International Human Rights Festival in Jersey. The photo essay is now a new gallery on my website. Below are the words from a short speech I gave introducing the photographs.
A Desperate Journey
“In 1989 the reporter Guy Gugliotta and I joined a group of 42 Nicaraguans who had sold or pawned everything they had to buy a ticket on Central America’s underground railroad. A journey that would take them to the United States and hopefully a better life. They travelled through Guatemala and Mexico by foot and bus guided by 3 ‘Coyotes’ and eventually they crossed into the United States through Brownsville Texas.
The 1980s had impoverished Nicaragua as the United States funded the Contra War against the left wing Sandinista government. The hopes of the 1979 revolution had turned to dust as Nicaragua struggled to cope after 10 years of war. In 1989 tens of thousands of Nicaraguans rushed to get to the United States to beat a March 1st deadline because immigration rule changes meant that Nicaraguans would no longer be considered for political asylum if they reached the American border.
The journey from Central America to the United States that I documented in 1989 is still taking place today. Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, Central and South Americans still make the journey today. They brave corrupt police and army, dodge arms and drug smugglers and criminals hoping to exploit the vulnerable migrants. Once in the United States, they will join families and communities from their own countries and begin the process of starting a new life.
Having been born in Mexico, I had a strong affinity to the 42 migrants whose journey I documented. I was a young boy when my mother took me and my sisters and crossed into the United States. In my 20s I returned to Mexico and lived in Mexico City. In my 30s I came to the United Kingdom to work as a photojournalist, basing myself in London. I have been an immigrant all my life.
The photographs hopefully will remind you of the struggles that human beings voluntarily take on to seek a better life. Migration is the history of human beings. The photographs document one small journey of the many that take place every day around the world.”
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