Between 1983 and 1987 along the California-Mexico border, Ken Light took his Hasselblad camera and flash and rode alongside United States Border Patrol agents in the middle of the night as they combed Otay Mesa in looking for "illegal aliens". He was there when they were arrested, captured by the authorities and by the photographer's flash. The black-and-white images are snap shots of cops in the desert, taken at a moment of extreme vulnerability, when hope gave way to despair, migrants caught in a cruel game of hide-and-seek. Light's photographs and José Ángel Navejas' captivating memoir, presented in both English and Spanish, offer testimony to the harrowing nighttime border crossing of those desperately seeking a chance at a better life. A day after Navejas first crossed the US border from Mexico, he was captured and deported to the streets of Tijuana. Undeterred, he crawled back through a tunnel to San Diego, where he entered the United States for good. With piercing words and strobe-lit images captured in the dead of night, the immediacy of Midnight La Frontera underscores the struggle and defiance of those who trek dangerously for days and weeks in search of the American Dream.
Hard cover
136 pages
