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Guide to the Julián Cardona Collection, 1993-2012
TBC/JCA
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Collection Title: Julián Cardona Collection
Dates: 1993-2012
Identification: TBC/JCA
Creator:
Cardona, Julián, 1960-
Physical Description: 15.80 linear feet
Language of Materials:
English
Spanish; Castilian
English
Spanish; Castilian
Repository:
Special Collections
Abstract: Photographer Julián Cardona has reported
and documented on the conditions of Ciudad Juárez since 1993 when he started his career
at
El Diario de Juárez. Between 2009-2013 he was a reporter
for Reuters News Agency. His work has appeared in numerous exhibitions and been featured
in many publications. He has collaborated with journalist and author Charles Bowden to
produced the book
Exodus/Èxodo (Austin, University of Texas
Press, 2008). Cardona's work documents violence in the border region, the effects of
globalization, and the changing landscape of the Mariscal District. The collection
includes images from 2008 when the level of homicides reached its climax to the end of
the year 2012.
Born in 1960 in Zacatecas, Mexico, Julián Cardona migrated to the border city of Ciudad
Juárez with his family as a small child. In 1993, Cardona started his photojournalism
career at
El Fronterizo and
El Diario
de Juárez.
Working for
El Diario, Cardona
documented violence in Juárez from 1993 to 2012. In the 1990's, the city had several
industrial parks and hundreds of maquiladoras (foreign owned manufacturing companies on
the U.S.-Mexico border). Job opportunities lured between 50,000-70,000 citizens, paying
$5-7 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 captures 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 in 1995-96 when drugs
become 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 ~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 book
Exodus/Éxodo, documenting the exodus of the city's inhabitants.
Photographic material
2013
Lucy Hernandez, 2013
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s)
of this collection has not 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.
This collection is open for research use.
Digital reproductions of selected items in this collection are available
electronically as a part of the
Tom & Ethel Bradley Center
Photographs
project. For more information please see
http://digital-library.csun.edu/.
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style
manual, or see the
Citing Archival
Materials
guide.
Series I: Film, 2000-2005
Series II: Slides, 1993-2003
Series III: Digital Images, 2007-2012
Series IV: Prints, 1993-2005
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 1993-2012. 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 (2000-2005), Slides (1993-2003), Digital Images (2007-2012), and Prints
(1993-2005.) 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, missing and murdered girls. The group
Voces sin
Eco
(Voices Without Echo) and their activities are documented. The digital
image collection focuses of daily life in Juárez, the effects of globalization, the
abandoned buildings, militarization and new culture that has developed. Cardona
documents crime scenes and investigations reported in news media. The print collection
is derived from the negatives present in the three series mentioned above.
Series I, Film (2000-2005), 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 the
book
Exodus/Èxodo. 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 Rach (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 (1993-2003), includes 9,118 images from
Exodus/Èxodo and the New American 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
(E.C.M. 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 7,752 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 journalist. 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 mentally ill people.
Series IV, Prints (1993-2005), includes 90 prints, the majority of which are black and
white, made from the film and slides. Seventy-one prints were made from images for and
appear in
Exodus/Éxodo and the New American 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 to Voces sin Eco. Eighteen color prints are primary 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
(E.C.M. plant), Harman International Company, Lear Corp. (Fuentes plant), Miss RCA
Beauty Contest, RCA-Thomson plant, and United Technologies Automatic, UTC #158. These
prints have been exhibited in various exhibitions.