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Cardona (Julián) Collection
TBC.JCA
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives
Title: Julián Cardona Collection
Creator:
Cardona, Julián (1960-2020)
Identifier/Call Number: TBC.JCA
Physical Description:
13.04 linear feet
Physical Description:
87.15 Gigabytes
Date (inclusive): 1991-2014
Abstract: Photographer Julián
Cardona reported and documented on the conditions of Ciudad Juárez since 1993 when he
started his career at
El Diario de Juárez. Between 2009 to
2013, he was a reporter for Reuters News Agency. His work has appeared in numerous
exhibitions and has been featured in many publications. He collaborated with journalist and
author Charles Bowden for the publication,
Exodus/Éxodo
(Austin, University of Texas Press, 2008). Cardona's work documents violence in the border
region, migration, the effects of globalization, and the changing landscape of the Mariscal
District, Ciudad Juárez, and other locations in Mexico and the United States. The physical
collection contains negatives, slides, large prints, ephemera, and publications with bulk
dates from the year 1994 to 2006. The digital collection includes born-digital images from
2008, the year the level of homicides reached its climax, to the end of 2012.
Language of Material:
English, Spanish; Castilian.
Born in 1960 in Zacatecas, Mexico, Julián Cardona migrated to the border city of Ciudad
Juárez with his family as a small child. One of his jobs early in life was working in a
maquiladora, a foreign-owned cheap-labor manufacturing company on the U.S.-Mexico border. In
1993, Cardona started his photojournalism career at
El
Fronterizo
and
El Diario de Juárez. Working for
El Diario de Juárez, Cardona documented violence in Juárez
from 1993 to 2012. In the 1990s, the city had several industrial parks and hundreds of
maquiladoras. Job opportunities lured between 50,000 to 70,000 citizens, paying $5 to $7 a
shift. Population growth and the meager wages led to the growth of the drug market in the
mid-1990s. Many victims of the drug violence were poor and worked in the maquilas. Cardona
captured the experience and culture of working inside the maquilas and the individual lives
affected by the industry.
Cardona's work as a photojournalist documented the period starting from around 1993, when
drugs became increasingly available and violence levels in the city started to rise. In
1995, he photographed disappearing women as the economy boomed and homicides surged. In
1998, he started documenting the effects of globalization on the U.S.-Mexico border, the
unsolved murders of women in Juárez, the social effects caused by low wages paid in border
factories, the immigrant exodus, economic collapse, shantytown communities and slum
conditions, violence, poverty, and the social upheaval he witnessed.
Cardona continued to document Juárez through the recessions of 2001 and 2008, which
weakened the maquila economy, ultimately resulting in an estimated 116,000 vacant houses
across the city out of 416,000 stock units. Collaborating with journalist and author Charles
Bowden, Cardona worked on the project resulting in the publication,
Exodus/Éxodo, documenting the exodus of the city's inhabitants. Cardona's last
project was a collaboration with Alice Leora Briggs for the publication,
Abecedario de Juárez: An Illustrated Lexicon.
Julián Cardona died in Ciudad Juárez in 2020.
The
Julián Cardona Collection documents the violence in the
U.S./Mexico border cities and the economic violence that has engulfed the region. Cardona's
work is internationally recognized, documenting transnational economic violence in Mexico,
the resulting exodus of Mexican communities, and the emergence of the new Americans in the
United States. The main focus of the collection is on Ciudad Juárez between 1993 to 2012.
Other regions include the Juárez Valley, Agua Prieta, Altar, Anapra, Bisbee and other border
cities. The collection has been divided into four major series:
Film (1999-2007),
Slides and Professional Files
(1991-2014),
Digital Images (2007-2012), and
Prints (1994-2005). The black-and-white film collection is
particularly strong in documenting the lives of immigrants throughout various U.S. cities.
Recent events include Hurricane Katrina and the immigration reform marches in Los Angeles.
The collection also contains images of Don Henry Ford and his hideouts. Color slides
depicted laborers and work conditions inside the maquiladoras. Additional black and white
slides document the homicides of missing and murdered girls. The group Voces Sin Eco (Voices
Without Echo) and their activities are documented. The digital image collection focuses on
daily life in Juárez, the effects of globalization, the abandoned buildings, militarization
and the new culture that has developed. Cardona documents crime scenes and investigations
reported in news media. The print collection was derived from negatives present in the
collection and were used for exhibits.
Series I,
Film (1999-2007), consists of 35mm black and white
film, with a few 120mm, 4x5, and color 35mm film. The series documents the exodus of Mexican
communities resulting from economic violence in Mexico, and includes many of the images used
in
Exodus/Éxodo. The series also includes Cardona's "New
Americans" series, which documented the jobs, trials, and lifestyle of new immigrants in
various U.S. cities, including the challenges of obtaining a driver's license in North
Carolina and the protest and marches in Los Angeles for immigration reform. Other subjects
documented include the anti-immigration movement, U.S.-Mexico border, US Border Patrol,
boycotts, disappeared and murdered girls, Don Henry Ford (drug smuggler), families and
grief, funerals, House of Death, illegal immigrants, La Mixteca, Las Chepas, Lilliana
Holguin's disappearance, Minutemen, narcos, police, protests, Voces Sin Eco (Voices Without
Echo), and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Images were shot in Agua Prieta (MEX),
Altar (AZ), Anapra (Juárez), Bisbee (AZ), Dodge City (KS), Douglas (GA), El Paso (TX),
Juárez, King Ranch (TX), Las Acequias (MEX), Los Angeles (CA), Oaxaca (MEX), Phoenix (AZ),
Rio Bravo (TX), Sásabe (AZ), Tapatios (MEX), Veracruz (MEX), and Zocalo Plaza (Mexico
City).
Series II,
Slides and Professional Files (1991-2014), includes
images from
Exodus/Éxodo and the "New Americans" series. It
also includes Cardona's series "Dying Slowly: A look inside the maquiladoras on the
U.S./Mexico border and The Truth: Evidence of a Failure." The series documents economic
structures, and the lives of individuals and communities. Included are views into ADC
International OUS Inc., Allegiance (Convertors plant), Antec Network Actives (Texscan
plant), Electrical Wire (ECM plant), Harman International Company, Lear Corp. (Fuentes
plant), Miss RCA Beauty Contest, and RCA-Thomson plant, United Technologies Automatic, UTC
#158. Also documented are homicides in Juárez, including femicides and the search for
Lillian Holguín and its aftermath. Subjects and locations include barrio conditions,
churches, demonstrations, gang members, Juárez, laborers, maquiladoras, marches against
violence, neighborhoods, nightclubs, Oaxaca, police, protests, Rio bravo, Santa Fe
international bridge, Texans, Veracruz, and Voces Sin Eco.
Series III,
Digital Images (2007-2012), includes born-digital
images documenting daily life, crime and its aftermath, and the culture in Ciudad Juárez
since militarization. The images document the militarization of the city in 2008, human
rights violations by the army, and the federal police takeover in 2010. Captured are
execution scenes, killings, dead bodies, bodies in the morgue, threats, bullet-ridden cars,
and the investigation of various killings include journalists. Also included are massacres
at rehabilitation centers, survivors, Houses of Death, mass graves, clandestine graves,
politicians and the military, and the families of the murdered and missing. Images from
Cardona's collection are used in the book
Murder City by
Charles Bowden. Other subjects include the social effects of maquiladoras, the destruction
of entire neighborhood blocks, the exodus of residents fleeing the violence, the collapsing
economy, the changing physical landscape of Calle Mariscal, abandoned neighborhoods in
Ciudad Juárez, and Visión en Acción, an asylum 20 miles southwest of Ciudad Juárez that
provides shelter for people who are mentally disabled.
Series IV,
Prints (1994-2005), includes about 60 prints, the
majority of which are black and white, made from the film and slides. The majority were made
from images for and appear in
Exodus/Éxodo and the "New
Americans" series. Images include those of the journey and trails used to immigrate from
border cities, hiring coyotes, crossing the desert, encountering Minutemen and border
patrol, grief of individuals, and Voces Sin Eco. Eighteen color prints are primarily from
the slides about the maquiladora industry and include the shantytowns and communities
surrounding the maquilas such as Aguas Negras, the conditions inside the maquilas, the young
girls and boys working in the maquilas, the bosses, and the beauty contest held to enforce
femininity among the female workers. Included are views into ADC International OUS Inc.,
Allegiance (Convertors plant), Antec Network Actives (Texscan plant), Electrical Wire (ECM
plant), Harman International Company, Lear Corp. (Fuentes plant), Miss RCA Beauty Contest,
RCA-Thomson plant, and United Technologies Automatic, UTC #158. The prints have been
displayed in various exhibitions.
Collection folders are arranged alphabetically by title.
Series I: Film, 1999-2007
Series II: Slides and Professional Files, 1991-2014
Series III: Digital Images, 2007-2012
Series IV: Prints, 1994-2005
This collection is open for research use.
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of
this collection has been transferred to California State University, Northridge. Copyright
status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected
by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the
written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any
use rests exclusively with the user.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Julián Cardona, 2013
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual,
or see the
Citing Archival Materials
guide.
Lucy Hernandez, 2013
Born-digital images in this collection are available electronically in the
Julián Cardona digital collection as a part of the Tom and Ethel
Bradley Center Photographs project.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Photographs
Ephemera