My paternal great-grandparents, who were legal U.S. residents, emigrated back to their native México during the Great Depression. Their son, my Abuelo (grandfather) who was born in San Antonio, became a U.S. immigrant to México at seventeen. Time passed and fate would again intervene when my father, a chronic asthmatic learned of a place where he could live […]
Superior is a town in transition; a yet to be completed work, a town struggling to grow into itself. Nestled at the base of the picturesque Apache Leap and surrounded by the eastern foothills of the Superstitions, Superior seems ideally suited to live up to to its inherent promise – a former mining town all […]
I remember the summers of early childhood with my mother. The sounds of the Cure and Prince still bring back memories of seeing her get ready for an evening out. I watched her put on makeup, color her hair, and paint her nails with the eyes of a loving and curious daughter who came too […]
Agriculture at the Phoenix Indian School site has had a long history, from the ancient Hohokam canal running through the site, to farming programs at the Phoenix Indian School, and to the most recent incarnation at the PHX Renews site. Examining the history and land use of this one site over time reveals interesting tensions […]
I first met Sally at a yogurt shop. Inside, she divulged to me some of the most personal and painful periods of her life. I listened to her recall memories of poverty, a drug infested culture, years of neglect and maltreatment, multiple “father figures,” and repeated physical assaults against her. She told me about the […]
Ajo was synonymous with copper mining until the Phelps Dodge Company pulled out in the 1980s. Reeling after the shutdown of the mine, Ajo recast its identity as a destination for part-time winter residents and tourists. The hardening of the U.S.-Mexico border during the 1990s, however, funneled undocumented border crossers from Mexico into the desert […]
In tracing a visual urban history of dynamic central city neighborhoods a common misconception is made: “then and now”, “now and then”. Discontinuity and loss seem the primary effect as space and time are ripped asunder by this binary, linear view. Upon a second, and maybe third viewing, the tension between “past” and “present” reveal […]
The sites of historic photographs of the Phoenix Metropolitan area have been relocated and the views repeated (rephotographed), sometimes on several occasions. New sites have also been created for the purpose of rephotography at a later date.
An in-depth document of a small, rural town 30 miles west of Phoenix as it undergoes the change from a small farming town to a Phoenix suburb.