The All American Canal meanders
along the border for about 80 miles before reaching the spot I chose to
watch the extraordinary pre-dawn light. I’ve paused to make a picture
while searching for it's end; which is somewhere west of Calexico where
channels deliver water deep into Imperial County farmland.
Nearby
there is a bridge, and next to it a line of tires bolted together and
attached to a chain; an apparatus used to smooth out the fine gravel of
the road that runs alongside the canal so that new footprints can be
seen by the Border Patrol. A man in a small pickup truck nods as he
passes, then circles back to where he came from, only to return again a
little while later. He is looking for someone, perhaps a solo (migrant)
or a sign from a coyote (human smuggler) on the other side of the water.
For the next few minutes I scramble to record the massive Rorschach
test created by the scattered clouds against the rising sun.
With
wages 10 times higher on the north side of the canal than the south,
the draw to migrate is powerful, and along with bringing life to the
southern California desert, the All American also brings death. Later in
the day I would learn about the frequent drownings of people trying to
enter the US by swimming the canal, and of their burial in a paupers
cemetery 20 miles north of the border.
There
is also a southern migration whose paths lead to Imperial; a migration
of middle class explorers, retired pensioners, hippies, dreamers and
rubber-punks. Much of my work in Imperial has been focused on a small,
improvised community they’ve created, and on its relationship to the
surrounding area. I was drawn there by curiosity about the kinds of
psychological spaces and physical geographies people navigate to create a
sense of place, value and community while living in such a difficult
landscape.
