Walking Juárez is a collection of photographs and stories gathered from the streets and byways of Juárez and El Paso -La Frontera- by photographer Bruce Berman. In this document are stories of migrants, laborers, musicians, children at play, romance at the river, the abandoned, grave painters, grieving relatives of the fallen in the recent Cartel War, and people of deep faith. Berman's photographs are time capsules and his text is personal, crisp, and insightful. In the end, Berman's search "to give face" to the border leads him to a realization that it is he who gained "face" through his encounters while walking in Juárez. Walking Juárez is a meditation and an ode to the enduring people of the borderlands. It is a glimpse into the heart of a Mexican city that lives between its heritage to the south but unavoidably looks over its shoulder to the north, to El Paso, to the ever present USA. Berman's walk goes from youthful exuberance to a mature meditation on time, hope, ambition and finally, acceptance. It is not a journey soon forgotten.
About the Author: Bruce Berman has been a professional photographer for over four decades. He has always worked in what some call, "The Concerned Photographer," style of photography. His initial documentary projects, begun in the late 1960s, were in Chicago where he photographed Appalachian migrants to the big city, Black Panthers during the tumultuous 1960's and the gritty street life of Chicago in its decaying Rust Belt years. His main work has concentrated on the United States/Mexico border, particularly the narrow stretch of land that encompasses El Paso, Texas and Juárez, Mexico. After coming back from his earliest foray on Alameda Street on El Paso's south side, in 1980, Berman wrote in his journal, ..". I have seen a new world. It is both physical fact and a little bit of myth. It is a place where people look back and forth across a river forty yards wide but can't really see each other well, where the view of each other's reality is distorted. It is the USA/Mexican border and I am going to make my stand here." The aggregate result of that effort resides in three main bodies of work: The Border Project: 1985-2007, Aftermath: Cartel War Years (2007-2012) and Walking Juárez, 1975-present. Berman lives and works deep in the borderlands of El Paso/Juárez, three blocks from the international bridge that connects them. He has only one window and it looks out to the south, to Juárez, to México, toward the southern part of the hemisphere. He continues to cover his "beat," for himself and major publications throughout the world. In addition to being a professional photographer, since 2008 he teaches photojournalism at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, 47 miles north of the border. His teaching concentration is in Documentary Photojournalism. Living on the border with all of its many riddles, conflicts, dualities, hopes and aspirations has been perfect preparation for balancing these two missions. He considers it a border project.