Living Under the Trees

Short Synopsis

Living Under the Trees is a photo documentary and oral history website project, documenting the communities of indigenous immigrants from Oaxaca, Mexico, working and farm workers in California.

Description/Treatment

Mexico is experiencing profound social turmoil. About 30 million Mexicans survive on less than 30 pesos a day – not quite $3. The minimum wage is 45. The federal government estimates that 37.7% of Mexico’s 106 million citizens – 40 million people – live in poverty, 25 million in extreme poverty. In rural Mexico, over ten million people have a daily income of less than 12 pesos – about a dollar. In the southern state of Oaxaca extreme poverty encompasses 75% of its 3.4 million residents, making it the second-poorest state in Mexico, after Chiapas.
The majority of Oaxacans are indigenous people. They belong to communities and ethnic groups that existed long before Columbus landed in the Caribbean. Oaxacans speak 23 different languages, and among Mexican states, Oaxaca has the second-highest concentration of indigenous residents.
Oaxaca is one of the main starting points for the current stream of Mexican migrants coming to the U.S. Thousands indigenous people leave Oaxaca’s hillside villages for the United States every year. Lack of development pushes people off the land. And as they find their way to other parts of Mexico or the United States, the money they send home becomes crucial to the survival of the towns they leave behind.
This is an era of indigenous migration, when the numbers of migrants from communities and cultures which long predated Columbus, have now swelled to become the majority of people working in the fields. While dispersed inside Mexico and the US as a result of migration, the movement of people has created, in a sense, one larger community, located in many places simultaneously. Settlements of Triquis, Mixtecs, Chatinos and other indigenous groups are bound together by shared culture and language, and the social organizations people bring with them from place to place.
At first glance, they seem to be living in some of the most difficult conditions imaginable. But these communities have strong cultural bonds holding people together, creating a support network that provides food and companionship for migrants just arriving from the south, with no work and no money.
Living Under the Trees shows the conditions of indigenous farm worker communities, including inadequate housing, families struggling with low income and lack of legal immigration status, and hard working conditions. They show these communities developing a vibrant culture of music, dance, food and healthcare, which help them survive under difficult circumstances. They highlight the issue of immigration, and show the consequences of economic dislocation in Mexico. The project documents indigenous communities organizing themselves to win social justice in the U.S., confronting discrimination, immigration raids, and exploitation at work.
The digital color images focus on the relationship between community residents and their surroundings, and their relations with each other. They present situations of extreme poverty, but they also show people as actors, capable of changing conditions, organizing themselves, and making critical decisions. In the text and audio, community residents tell stories which convey the quality of life of each individual, and a sense of their cultural values. They describe social organizations that exist in indigenous migrant communities, and the way migrants see the broader community in which they live.
Living Under the Trees is a partnership between David Bacon, documentary photographer and journalist, and California Rural Legal Assistance and its Indigenous Farm Worker Project. It is supported by the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (FIOB), a network of Mexican indigenous communities in the U.S. and Mexico. The communities documented include Mixtecos, Triquis, Zapotecos, Chatinos, and Purepechas living in San Diego, Coachella, Arvin, Oxnard and Santa Paula, Santa Maria, Fresno and Selma, Salinas and Greenfield, Santa Rosa, Fairfield and Corning.
The process of taking the photographs and recording the interviews began with a meeting in Fresno in January, 2006, among indigenous community activists in the FIOB and CRLA community outreach workers, which designed the project’s parameters. Documentation took place throughout 2006 and 2007, and the community exhibitions and meetings began in late 2007 and will continue through 2010. A new round of documentation began in February, 2009 and is also continuing. There are approximately 3000 raw images, of which 500 have been selected and edited. Some 33 interviews have been conducted and transcribed.
The photographs have been shown in community centers, city halls, libraries or schools, in the small rural towns throughout California where these indigenous communities are located. These exhibitions have provided multiple forums in which migrant communities have engaged in an internal dialogue among themselves, as well as broader dialogues and interactions with the larger communities in which they live, about problems of immigration, housing, work and culture. Exhibitions and community meetings have been held in San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, Merced, San Francisco, Santa Paula, Watsonville, Hollister, Greenfield, and Lamont, and others are scheduled for Santa Rosa, Del Mar, Camarillo and Bakersfield.
Immigration is one of the most important and hotly debated issues in the U.S. Yet most people have little understanding of indigenous immigrants, who overwhelmingly belong to transnational communities like those of Oaxaca’s Mixtecs, Chatinos and Triquis. Today they make up a major percentage of the migrant stream. The farm worker communities where they live are often very polarized between immigrants and non-immigrants. Indigenous communities need greater understanding and acceptance in order to survive. This project provides a reality check about immigration, as well as a bridge between communities. It shows the actual conditions of people’s lives, and their effort to win social acceptance, justice and equality.
The intended audience for this project is twofold – indigenous communities themselves, and the broader communities around them. The project provides a vehicle through which community members can speak to each other about the problems of immigration status, housing, work and culture, while reinforcing pride in cultural accomplishments. The project also creates a venue for dialogue between indigenous farm worker communities and the broader public – students and academics, communities of color, professionals, government officials and others. As a result of this process, we hope to establish much stronger, direct relationships between indigenous migrant communities and organizations in the towns around them.
To expand the audience for this project, and to bring it to people who have no direct contact with the communities involved, we propose to create a website to house the images, text and audio. This will also make the project usable by indigenous communities themselves as they acquire internet access and familiarity, and to institutions in the towns where they live, such as schools, social service agencies, and advocacy organizations. That will help these communities advocate for their rights and wellfare, and to access the services they need.