Twenty-five Cent Stories

While visiting my wife’s family in south Texas in December of 2009, I had the pleasure of meeting one of the “cousin-in-laws,” Mauricio Palos (on the left in photograph). Mauricio, currently living in Mexico City, is a photojournalist under the employment of Getty Images. His last project took him across the immigration routes in Central America, photographing the immigrant experience as they lived it, and often times putting his own life in danger riding the trains (think Sin Nombre) or witnessing police raids on smugglers. Mauricio’s interest is in the effects that violence and poverty has on Latin American citizens that are often the reasons for their exodus. Whereas the United States sees its newcomers as criminals, Mauricio’s photographs captures their humanity, humility, and their victimization of circumstance. His photographs are varied: A queue of travelers wade the waist-deep waters of a river.  An amputee whose legs were severed after falling into the rail track (we even get a glimpse of a wooden crate filled with artificial limbs, like a charity box filled with shoes–if you find one that fits, take ‘em). The lifeless bodies of railway and cartel victims. Mauricio is an accomplished and recognized fotographer, winning several state arts grants in Mexico. Later this year his photographs will be published in book form.