REP 0 R T WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING In Juarez, Mexico, photographers expose the violent realities of free trade By Charles Bowden Te white eye of the blank screen and kill them." Them? Oh, he contin- tion and poverty and pockmarked with waits in the dark room. A few moments ued, you know, the young girls who billionaires is perceived as an emerging earlier, Jaime Baillereswas nuzzlinghis work in the maquiladoras, the foreign- democracy marching toward First thirteenth-month-old child and walk- owned factories, the ones who have to World standing. The snippets of fact ing around in the calm of his apart- leave for work when it is still dark. Of that once in a great while percolate ment. His wife, Graciela, puttered in course, I knew that violence is normal up through the Mexican press are ig- the kitchen, and soft words and laugh- weather in Juarez. As a local fruit ven- nored by the U.S. government and its ter floated through the serenity of their dor told an American daily, "Even the citizens. Mexico may be the last great home. A copy of a work on semiotics devil is scared of living here." drug experience for the American lay on the coffee table, and the rooms That's when it started for me. The people, one in which reality gives way whispered of culture and civility and photographers, like Jaime showing me to pretty colors. These photographs the joy of ideas. Outside, the city of his slides, are the next logical step to literally give people a picture of an Juarez,Mexico, waited with sharp teeth understanding the world in which economic world they cannot compre- and bloody hungers. Now the lights beaming seventeen-year-old girls sud- hend. Juarez is not a backwater but are offasJaime Bailleresdances through denly vanish. The cities of Ciudad the new City on the Hill, beckoning us a carousel of slides. Juarez and El Paso, Texas, constitute all to a grisly state of things. I am here because of a seventeen- the largest border community on earth, I've got my feet propped up on a year-old girl named Adriana Avila but hardly anyone seems to admit that coffeetable, a glassofwine in my hand, Gress. The whole thing started very the Mexican side exists. Within this and as far as the half-dozen photogra- simply. I was drinking black coffee and forgotten urban maze stalk some of the phers present for the slide show are reading a Juarez newspaper, and there, boldest photographers still roaming' concerned this is my first day of school tucked away in the back pages, where the streets with 35-mm cameras. Over and they're not sure if I've got what it the small crimes of the city bleed for a the past two years I have become a takes to be a good student. After all, no few inches, I saw her face. She was student of their work, because I think one comes here if he has a choice, and smilingat me and wore a straplessgown they are capturing something: the look absolutely no one comes to view their riding on breasts powered by an uplift of the future. This future is based on work. The photographers of Juarez bra, and a pair of fancy gloves reached the rich getting richer, the poor getting once put on an exhibition. No one in above her elbowsalmost to her armpits. poorer, and industrial growth produc- El Paso,separated from Mexico by thir- The story said she'd disappeared, all ing poverty faster than it distributes ty feet of river, was interested in hang- 1.6 meters of her. I turned to a friend wealth. We have these models in our ing their work, so they found a small I was having breakfast with and said, heads about growth, development, in- room in Juarez and hung big prints "What's this about?"He replied matter- frastructure. Juarez doesn't look like they could not really afford to make. of-factly, "Oh, they disappear all the any of these images, and so our abili- They called their show Nada. Que Ver, time. Guys kidnap them, rape them, ty to see this city comes and goes, "Nothing to See." mainly goes. A narion that has never Beginning in the early 1980s, pho- Charles Bowden's last piece for. Harper's hosted a jury trial, that has been dom- tographers began to show up with uni- Magazine,"Laughter, Gunfire, and Forget- ting," appeared in the September 1995 is- inated by one party for most of this versity degrees and tattered copies of sue. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. century, that is carpeted with corrup- the work of New York's famous street 44 HARPER'S MAGAZINE/DECEMBER 1996 shooter, Weegee (Arthur Fellig). A power. Alfredo says, "All these young ample, in Mexico you are counted as tradition of gritty, unsentimental, and kids dream of being Amado Carrillo." employed if you work one hour a week. loving street shooting that has all but The competition is rough. Yester- In 1994, millions of poor Mexicans perished in the United States was re- day, Juan Manuel Bueno Duenas, walked away from their dying earth born in juarez, in part because the pa- twenty-three, got into a dispute with and headed north. About one million pers offered a market but mostly be- a drug dealer. Juan belonged to Los managed to cross into the United cause the streets could not be denied. Harpys. Today at 4:30 P.M. he was States. The rest slammed up against The street shooters ofJuarez are main- buried in the municipal cemetery by the fence in places like Juarez. Since ly young and almost alwaysbroke. Pay his fellow gang members. The campo then this exodus has increased. Juarez at the half-dozen newspapers runs from santo was crowded with people, the af- is part of the Mexican gulag, the place fifty to eighty dollars a week, and they terflow of the Day of the Dead obser- for the people no one wants. must provide their own cameras. Film vance. Carloads of guys from Barrio Adriana Avila Gress was found is rationed by their employers. "We Chico, rivals of Los Harpys, opened about a week after her disappearance are like firemen," Jaime Bailleres ex- fire on the procession. No one is cer- in a desert tract embracing the city's plains, "only here we fight fires with tain how many people were wounded. southern edge, a place called the Late our bare hands." The gangs of juarez, los pandi/las, kill at Bravo. Adriana worked six days a week The slide presenta- tion clicks away. A child of seven is pinned under a mas- sive beam. He and his father were tearing apart a building for its old bricks when the ceiling collapsed. Jaime says that the child is whimpering and saying he is afraid of death. He lasted a few minutes more. Alfredo Carrillo stares intently at the images asJaime giveshim tips on how to frame dif-· ferent scenes. A hand reaches out from un- der a blanket-a cop cut down by AK-47s in front of a mansion owned by Amado Car- rillo Fuentes. Carrillo is a local businessman. THE CORPSE OF A RAPED AND MURDERED GIRL MUMMIFIED BYTHE DESERT SUN U.S. authorities cal- culate that he moves more than 100 least 200 people a year. Accepting such in a foreign-owned factory making turn tons of cocaine a year across the Rio realities is possible; thinking about signals for cars like the one you drive. Grande and into EI Paso. He is esti- them is not. Survival in] uarez is based She took home about five dollars a mated to be grossing $200 million a on alcohol, friendships, and laughter, day. In a photo of her body that I saw week, and to the joy of economists, much laughter. But this happens in in the newspaper morgue, her panties this business ishard currency and cash- private. The streets are full of people were down around her ankles as the and-carry. To my untrained eye the wearing masks. police circled her still form. At least dimensions of the dope business are In this city of sleepwalkers, ele- 150 girlsdisappeared in the city during simple: without it the Mexican econ- mentary facts, such as the population, 1995, and the government said that omy would totally collapse.' A gold are given scant attention. No one most ran off with boys. When more ring gleams on the cop's dead hand; for knows how many people live now in bodies were found, the police blamed Bailleres it is a study in the ways of Juarez, but the ballpark figure is 2 mil- an American serial killer and handily lion. Since December 1994 Mexico's arrested a suspect. But girls I Former president Carlos Salinas de Gar- tari figured Mexico's drug cartels net $30 currency has lost over half its value, continued to disappear. billion a year, more than the U.S. bailout of prices have more than doubled, and Mexico. In 1995, Salinas fled the country jobs have disappeared wholesale. Jaime Bailleres has projected a under suspicion of ties to the drug cartels. Real numbers hardly exist-for ex- beautiful black carved mask on the Photograph by Jaime Bailleres REPORT 45 screen. The head is tilted and the face bread is the First Wodd and the Third Summer brings water problems to a issmooth with craftsmanship. The hair World. We are the baloney." Julian, head (Juarezwill run completely out of is long and black.