August 8, 2007
Before the Limit
Claudia Guadarrama
Migrants pray before continuing their journey north after their stay in a migrant shelter in Arriaga, Chiapas, Mexico, on Jan. 23, 2006. © Claudia Guadarrama
We have invited Claudia Guadarrama, 2004 winner of the Inge Morath Award to tell us about the project that she has been working on with the help of the award.
The Inge Morath Award is organized by The Inge Morath Foundation in cooperation with Magnum Photos and is awarded annually to a female documentary photographer or photojournalist under the age of 30.
In future blog articles we will continue to look at the work of the previous Inge Morath Award winners.
My project is about undocumented Central American migrants crossing the southern border of Mexico trying to eventually get to the United States looking for a better life. There are no official records about the number of people crossing the Mexican border illegally everyday; but in agreement with official counts along this border, they detain approximately 44 percent of the total number of migrants that cross illegally through Mexico.
This is one of the most critical stages of the journey to the United States. The harassment and extortion of migrants are common things. Only a few of them can get through successfully.
Impunity, corruption and violence when crossing the border are things the migrants have to endure, besides dealing with military, immigration and police authorities and the civil population in general that takes advantage of their fragile situation to extort them, rob them and violently assault them.
I began the project in 2001 when information on the southern border was almost null and because of this I became interested in knowing what happens there. During this period, I was working for a newspaper as an assistant in the photography department. I decided to take my vacation and I went to the border using my own resources; I didn’t know in what way I should work, it was the first time I did a story and I went on intuition, little by little I met people and began to make contacts and I became involved in the subject.
It is difficult to work along this border because it is very dangerous because of the impunity and corruption that exist, one always has to weigh the risk and be careful with the people because many are implicated in criminal acts or in human trafficking and your presence bothers them; in Mexico no one cares if they kill or shoot a journalist.
In 2004, I found out about the Inge Morath award thanks to an email a female friend sent me. I decided to send my work but I never thought I would win. It was a big surprise and motivation to know I could continue my project with total freedom since I had decided to postpone it indefinitely because of a shortage of resources. My project is still unfinished, I am still working on it and hope to finish it soon.
In Mexico, it is very difficult to be a photojournalist or documentary photographer, economic support one can obtain is almost null, there's no space dedicated to photography where one can publish work, only in galleries or museums, and salaries are very limited and only enough to cover basic necessities.
You can see more photographs of this project on the website of the Inge Morath Award.
Published on the Magnum Blog on August 8, 2007
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