Alone, Unattended and Unexplained: American Lenses and Mexican Subjects in the Borderlands, 1930-1945

This presentation discusses the ambivalent attitudes of U.S. photographers regarding Mexican/Chicano subjects in the 1930-40s Borderlands. It analyzes the ways in which meaning was constructed in the visual representations of Mexican Nationals and Mexican American subjects in the United States, while incorporating the historical context of public policies regarding the presence of worker of Mexican origin/descent in the national agricultural landscape. Focusing on photographic materials by Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and others, most of them unpublished, the presentation unveils the complex thread of photographing Mexicans while abiding by the long standing tradition of placing them against pre-conceived backgrounds and complying with the emerging rules of modern photography documentary practices.
Juan Javier Pescador (historian & photographer) teaches Chicano History and Mexican Cultures in the United States at Michigan State University. His recent publications include “Los Heroes del Domingo: Soccer Associations and Border Spaces in the Great Lakes Mexican/Chicano Barrios” in Jorge Iber and Samuel O. Regalado (eds.), Mexican Americans and Sports (College Station: Texas A&M, 2007) and Crossing Borders with the Santo Nino de Atocha: A History of the Holy Child of Plateros (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming). His current research project analyzes the history of photography in Mexico and the United States and the process of racialization of Mexicans in the United States, in photography and the visual arts, from the Mexican-American War to the NAFTA-era.

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