This fall the Center is honored to showcase a photography collection titled “Rostros del Tiempo: Faces of Time.” Photographed by Charles D. Thompson, Jr., these portraits depict the faces of former Braceros (or their widows, who stand for them) who once worked in U.S. fields, harvesting crops and providing food for American consumers from 1942-1964. These elderly men and women gather every Sunday in Ciudad Juarez to protest because they still have not received the retirement benefits they earned half a century ago. Thompson’s photographs represent thousands more ex-Braceros near Ciudad Juarez and elsewhere in Mexico and the U.S., including those not pictured and those already passed on–as well as workers everywhere whose pay has been shortchanged.
Read about the Braceros in Thompson’s book, Border Odyssey (University of Texas Press, 2015), or view a short film about the Border Odyssey project here. You can also listen to a curated audio playlist about the immigrant experience produced by the Southern Oral History Program here.
The exhibition is on view at the Center through the fall.