Every Worker is an Organizer: Photographs by David Bacon Exhibited at the State Capitol
Every Worker is an Organizer
Fhotographs by David Bacon
This exhibit in the California State Capitol is organized by Assembly Member Luis Alejo and his staff, and is part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Farm Workers of America.
California State Capitol
Hallway next to the Governor’s Office
May 20-26, 2012
Sacramento, California
Open to the public
Farm labor is a key element historically in the photographic documentation of social reality in the US, and in particular the documentation of social protest. Dorothea Lange, Hansel Meith, Otto Hegel, and the generation of the 1930s and 1940s left a body of work showing the extreme exploitation of farm workers, and documenting the early farm labor organizing efforts, part of the great labor upsurge of those decades.
The iconography of social documentary photography was shaped by images like Lange’s mother and children in Nipomo, or those of the Pixley cotton strikers packed onto the back of a truck under their banner “Disarm the rich farmer or arm the workers for self-defense!” or the growers with their rifles waiting in ambush.
The first two decades of the growth of the United Farm Workers was undoubtedly one of the most-photographed social protests of the civil rights era. It too had its icons — the line of marchers on their way from Delano to Sacramento, silhoutted against the sky, or Cesar Chavez weakened by his fast, at the side of Robert Kennedy.
In 1994, a year after the death of Chavez, the union made a second march from Delano to Sacramento. In 1996, it began an effort to organize the central California coast strawberry industry, employing 25,000 workers. That struggle pitted workers and the union against mass firings, blacklists, company unions, and the use of the legal structure to subvert workers’ efforts. In 1998, workers at the country’s then second-largest vegetable grower, D’Arrigo Brothers walked out on strike in the Salinas Valley
The photographs in this exhibit document this period in the union’s history, especially the organizing drive in Watsonville and the strike at D’Arrigo. Some also document working lives of workers themselves. Strawberry pickers bend over double in the rows, run as they pick wine grapes or tomatoes, or balance at the top of date palms without safety lines. They show as well the extreme youth of farm workers today, where the average age has fallen to 20.
Like all workers, farm laborers take pride in the skill it takes to do their jobs, their bravery in the face of dangerous conditions (farm labor has one of the highest occupational injury rates of all US employment), and the social contribution they make in providing food for millions of people.
These are not images of passive exploitation, designed to elicit just a sympathetic response. They are a documentary record of the efforts workers have made to organize a union in the face of brutal working conditions and low wages.
The images are a view from below, looking at the work process and the union from the point of view of workers.
The UFW has had an enormous impact on the US labor movement over the last 50 years. It helped to inspire a resurgence of interest in organizing, and trained hundreds of people who went on to become organizers for unions and community organizations all across the country.
These photographs are part of a larger exhibition and documentary project about farm workers and migration tody. This set of images was exhibited at the Oakland Museum of California, the U.S. Labor College, Bread and Roses Gallery and the American Labor Museum, thanks to support from the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the Zellerbach Foundation.
Truth-Out: Photojournalist David Bacon talks about his book “Illegal People”
Amazing documentary photographer, labor organizer, activist, and longtime De-Bug friend David Bacon talks about his book “Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.” He knew De-Bug before it was De-Bug, and we are in solidarity with his art and his message all the way from the South Bay.
Truthout Contributor David Bacon on His New Book, “Illegal People”
Writer and photographer David Bacon has released the new book, “Illegal People – How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.” (Courstesy: David Bacon)
David Bacon’s “Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants” is yours, shipped directly from Truthout, with a minimum one-time donation of $25, or a monthly commitment of $10 or more to Truthout “Illegal People” demythologizes the “immigration” issue and champions the dignity of people seeking work for survival while detailing the need for economic justice.
Mark Karlin: Isn’t the “immigration” debate in the United States really just a coded way of saying, “keep brown-skinned people from Mexico and Central America out of the United States”?
David Bacon: There’s certainly that exclusionary aspect to it. Immigrants coming from Mexico, Latin America, Asia and Africa have always been treated differently from those from Europe. Think about the difference between the experience of Europeans coming through Ellis Island into New York, which was relatively free (and without visas, incidentally), and, at the same time, the incarceration of Chinese immigrants in San Francisco Bay, as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
(more…)
New Show: This Camera Fights Fascism
The title alone should get you to go!
This Camera Fights Fascism:
The Photographs of David Bacon and Francisco Dominguez
de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University
Santa Clara, CA
July 29 – December 4, 2011 and January 14 – February 5, 2012
Tuesday – Sunday 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Opening Thursday, September 22nd, 6PM
David Bacon and Francisco Dominguez have both followed in the tradition of Depression-era photographers such as Dorothea Lange, focusing their cameras on struggle, dissent, immigrants, and workers. Their photographs speak to the global character of contemporary migration. Like the so-called Okies of the Depression, many of today’s migrants have been displaced by environmental degradation and wider economic forces.
The title of this exhibition refers to a sign that 1930s folk musician Woody Guthrie often had on his guitar, “This Machine Kills Fascists.” These two photographers build a powerful body of visual evidence of the continuing struggle of workers, migrants, and poor people to survive. In this exhibition the photographers responded to images by Dorothea Lange and selected photographs from their own work that draw close connections between the 1930s and today.
David Bacon is a photojournalist who has documented the movements of farm workers, social protest from Iraq and Mexico to the U.S., and the migration of people. He is the author of several books, and many of the images in this show are from Communities Without Borders, Images and Words from the World of Migration.
Francisco Dominguez is a photographer and printmaker. His parents both were farm workers. He documents the struggles of indigenous, immigrant, and poor people in black and white photography.
- Art Hazelwood, Guest Curator
To view the slide show please go to:
http://www.scu.edu/desaisset/exhibitions/Camera-Slide.cfm
It’s Here! Like it, love it, pass it on. GlassClops
Brought to you by De-Bug, Glassclops is set out to capture the medium that we love. As photographers, we realized that with the great downsizing of film products, we are at risk of losing a great art form. We do this magazine as a response to this pattern, and out of love. Our goal is to keep film alive, we feel the only way that we can do this is by partnering up with other photographers, photo magazines, blogs or anyone interested in film photography. In this we hope that we can promote Glassclops on your website, blog or something as simple as through your social network (Facebook,Twitter ect.). Also, please contact us if you would like to honor us with film images for an upcoming issue.
In this issue we feature: David Bacon (a world renowned photojournalist), Braulio Gonzalez ( a student photographer on the rise from East Palo Alto), Ronald Orlando (a musician photographer with profound images), Felipe R. Vasquez of Newark Califas (a photographer with keen eye for chicano culture imagery), and Charisse Domingo ( a photo journalist who showed us her first image she made).
If we unite digital won’t take over film, but just become a different medium.
Beyond Borders Photo Exhibit
If you are in the Sacramento area, you have to check out these amazing photographers telling an important story of our times.
Beyond Borders: Immigration Images and Stories
Photographs by David Bacon and Kathya Landeros
Wed, 03/09/2011 – Sat, 04/02/2011
Artist Reception Date:
Fri, 03/11/2011 – 5:30pm – 9:00pm
An experienced photographer, journalist, and former labor organizer, Bacon’s stunning work of photographs and oral history documents the new reality of migrant experience: the creation of transnational communities. He takes us inside these communities and illuminates the ties that bind them together, the influence of their working conditions on their families and health, and their struggle for better lives.
Landeros, herself from a family of immigrants from Central Mexico, proposes that “If one can accept that the history of migratory policy toward Mexico has been complicated as we negotiate between our demands for labor and our need for cultural sovereignty, then we can acknowledge that the migrant communities that have developed in Mexico are a manifestation of these complexities.”
