Tag Archives: Julian Cardona

CSUN journalism professor José Luis Benavides interviews Charles Bowden

Cal State Northridge, journalism professor, José Luis Benavides, interviews journalist and author Charles Bowden, April 22, 2013.

Over the last twenty years Bowden has authored several books on the violence occurring on the border between the United States and Mexico, focusing on Ciudad Juárez. Benavides and Bowden discuss the factors that led to his decision to start writing about the atrocities that Mexico’s powerful and, well-connected, elite carry out against the poor citizens of the country. At the forefront of his decision were the local street photographers that he encountered during a murder story he was investigating in Juárez in 1995. Bowden continues to tell the true story of why such an overwhelming amount of violence exists in Juárez.

After writing a piece about the exceptional work of the Juárez photographers, he discusses the origins of his friendship and collaborative working relationship with Juárez photographer, Julián Cardona. Bowden and Cardona have collaborated on several books. In “Juárez: Laboratory of our Future” Bowden shares how “American generated poverty in factories owned by American companies that pay slave wages,” are not enough for Mexican citizens, working in maquiladoras (foreign owned factories along the US/Mex. border), to survive. The book “Exodus/Éxodo” documents the emigration of Mexican citizens.

UTEP Panel discussion: Julian Cardona, Photographer & Journalist

PANEL DISCUSSION THURSDAY February 21, 2013, 6:00 pm, UTEP Rubin Center Auditorium, 500 West University Ave. El Paso, TX

Julian Cardona, photojournalist
Charles Bowden, author of Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future (1998); Down by the River (2002); Murder City (2010)
Nancy Sutor, curator of the exhibit, History of the Future, currently at Museo de Arte in Juarez

Moderated by Kerry Doyle, curator of Stardust: Memories of the Calle Mariscal, currently at the Rubin Center

Juarez May murder toll: 74..lowest in 49 months

Diario has only a short report online so far today on the total number of
murders in May–74, the smallest number in the past 49 months–that is
going back to early 2008.  I’m still using the total of 122 for January, so
my figures are a little different than the monthly totals in Diario:
January 122
February 82
March 105
April 108
May 74

for a total of 491 so far in 2012. The average number of people killed in
May is down to 2.3. The yearly average is still at 3.2 people killed each
day.

Using these yearly figures:
2008 = 1,623    2009 = 2,754   2010 = 3,622**    2011 = 2,086    2012 = 491
(January – May)

The total number of homicide victims in the city of Juarez is now 10,576
since January 2008. I’m hoping that a fuller report will be in the paper
later today. molly

**Diario reports 3,111. Other media have reported 3,115. One report in
March 2011 from the Fiscalia said that the actual number was 3,900+. I use
the 3,622 number that was reported by a source in the Chihuahua Fiscalia
and pubished in this Reuters article in December 2011.

Juarez May murder toll: 74..lowest in 49 months

Diario has only a short report online so far today on the total number of
murders in May–74, the smallest number in the past 49 months–that is
going back to early 2008.  I’m still using the total of 122 for January, so
my figures are a little different than the monthly totals in Diario:
January 122
February 82
March 105
April 108
May 74

for a total of 491 so far in 2012. The average number of people killed in
May is down to 2.3. The yearly average is still at 3.2 people killed each
day.

Using these yearly figures:
2008 = 1,623    2009 = 2,754   2010 = 3,622**    2011 = 2,086    2012 = 491
(January – May)

The total number of homicide victims in the city of Juarez is now 10,576
since January 2008. I’m hoping that a fuller report will be in the paper
later today. molly

**Diario reports 3,111. Other media have reported 3,115. One report in
March 2011 from the Fiscalia said that the actual number was 3,900+. I use
the 3,622 number that was reported by a source in the Chihuahua Fiscalia
and published in this Reuters article in December 2011.

 

 

 

More than Words: Photojournalist captures the violence in Mexico via El Nuevo Sol

Julian Cardona/ Photo by Karla Henry for El Nuevo Sol

Mexican photojournalist Julian Cardona presented his photographs illustrating the violence in Mexico and the economic turmoil its citizens face during his visit to California State University, Northridge on Tuesday, April 11.

Sharing photographs from his books including Exodus/Exodo and Juarez: The Laboratory of our Future, Cardona noted the ramifications of North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA), an agreement among the US, Mexico and Canada, and the risks migrants face when crossing the border.

“First thing I realized was that in the city there were external forces and transnational forces that were playing a role in the everyday life,” said Cardona.

As a photographer for El Diario de Juarez, he witnessed first hand the effects of foreign markets in Mexico, noting the privatization of the public enterprise and market de-regularization.

To read more, visit El Nuevo Sol

For more on the violence in Mexico, click here

A Canadian calls Ciudad Juárez, a.k.a. Murder City, home. Why?…Toronto Star

A small comment: in this article below, Charles Bowden is blamed or
credited with first calling Juarez “Murder City” because of his book
that chronicles the explosion of hyperviolence that began in early
2008. I know from talking to the author that this was not the original
title of the book, but one given to the manuscript, probably by the
people in the marketing department of the publisher. Interestingly, I
found out AFTER Bowden’s Murder City was published in early 2010, that
another book with that very same title had come out just a year or so
earlier…it was about Chicago:  Murder City: The Bloody History of
Chicago in the Twenties, by Michael Lesy (Author)

Someone should probably have done a little amazon.com search…maybe I
should have, since I’m the librarian…

No matter… two books, same title.  I do think that despite the
repetition, Murder City is an apt title for a book about a place that
was (and probably still is) the most murderous city in the world. It
definitely was in 2010. If no longer at the top of the list, it
certainly ranks in the top 3.

Juarez, Todavia la mas Violenta del Mundo

A Canadian calls Ciudad Juarez, a.k.a. Murder City, home. Why?

The Deadliest Place In Mexico Who’s killing the people of the Juarez Valley?–Melissa del Bosque in the Texas Observer

To reach the deadliest place in Mexico you take Carretera Federal 2, a well-paved stretch of highway that begins at the outskirts of Juarez, east for 50 miles along the Rio Grande, passing through cotton and alfalfa fields until you reach the rural Juarez Valley, said to have the highest murder rate in the country, if not the world.

The Juarez Valley is a narrow corridor of green farmland carved from the Chihuahuan desert along the Rio Grande. Farmers proudly say it was once known for its cotton, which rivaled Egypt’s. But that was before the booming growth of Juarez’s factories in the 1990s left farmers downstream with nothing but foul-smelling sludge to irrigate their fields. After that, the only industry that thrived was drug smuggling. Because of the valley’s sparse population and location along the Rio Grande’s dried up riverbed, a person can easily drive or walk into Texas loaded down with marijuana and cocaine.

For decades, this lucrative smuggling corridor, or “plaza,” was controlled by the Juarez cartel. In 2008, Mexico’s largest, most powerful syndicate—the Sinaloa cartel, run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman—declared war on the Juarez cartel and moved in to take over the territory. The federal government sent in the military to quell the violence. Instead the murder rate in the state of Chihuahua exploded. The bloodshed in the city of Juarez made international news. It was dubbed the “deadliest city in the world.”

Click here to read more