Ingrid Leyva: Mexican Shoppers
Ingrid is a transborder artist who grew up between Cd. Juarez, Chihuahua and El Paso, Texas. She has been developing her ability for portraiture in order to explore her own identity and the one of the world around her.
She has studied in Escuela Activa de Fotografia in Mexico City, has an associate in arts from El Paso Community College and has taken several workshops focused in portraiture and filmmaking . Her work has been shown individually in Mexico City and collectively in states such as Chihuahua, Texas, New York, Guadalajara and California. She was part of the 5th Transborder Biennial and one of her portraits belongs in the permanent collection at El Paso Museum of Art.
RR: Hello Ingrid, could you tell me a little bit about yourself?
IL: Hola Raul, sure and thank you for the space. Right now I live in El Paso, Texas but I am a transborder person. Like so many, I am used to coming back and forth between Cd. Juarez and El Paso and having a tight relationship with both cities. Talking about this project, I can share that while growing up in Juarez, I remember that on the weekends my mom used to take me and my sisters to El Paso to visit family, go shopping or eat at buffets. Going back and forth to El Paso is a dynamic that is very common here, just like to El Pasoan’s crossing to Juarez. We are still moving from one side to the other no matter what’s happening.
Around 2009, my sisters and my mother who are U.S. citizens moved to El Paso, Texas while I was living in Mexico City. The decision to migrate was because we were surrounded with lots of violence in Juarez. At that time many people ran away from the city and I remember that we could’t even leave our house after 8 pm because there was a curfew.
My adolescence in Juarez passed between joy and the anguish of my mother wondering where we were all the time, because we were all women in my house and that was, and still is, enough reason for someone to kill you. Now that I think about it, it’s sad because to live here means that you have to have the courage to go on with your life knowing that you can be targeted on one side because of your gender and on the other because of your nationality.
RR: How did you get started in photography?
IL: I think it started with my grandfather who was a photographer as well. I remember that he used to give me a 35mm camera and a piece of paper with instructions (which I never followed) about what exposure to use under certain light conditions.
When I was a kid he would to give me permission to go walk around downtown Chihuahua City where his photo studio was and all I liked to do was take pictures of the doves. I don't even remember if a single picture came out good but thanks to him I started immersing myself in photography.
Photography has always been a family profession. I have to say that my great grandfather was an amazing portrait photographer in the 1940s and, nowadays, some of my aunts and cousins do quinceañeras and weddings; so in a way I am the weirdo of the family. I also studied at Escuela Activa de Fotografia in Mexico City, which is a school that specializes in photography and that’s where I understood what my grandfather meant with his instructions. Also where I started my personal artistic explorations.
RR: You’re sharing your work, Mexican Shoppers, which is done across multiple border regions including Cd. Juarez/El Paso in Texas and the San Ysidro/Tijuana border in California. Tell me, how did you start the series?
IL: It was a couple of years ago. It was December and Trump was about to become the president. My heart was very heavy those days. Still is, but at that time I had started to live here in the U.S. and the way I was trying to adapt was making a photo dairy. I just walked the streets and took pictures of things that resonated with me the most and could help me to find a sense of belonging.
One of those days I was waiting for the bus that was going to take me to the bridge to cross to Juarez and I saw this lady who was behind a lot of shopping bags, I asked her if she was carrying all of that by herself and she told me, “Ay mija! This is nothing! Yesterday I bought even more things and every month I come here and buy five thousand dollars worth of stuff and take back to Zacatecas with me to then resell everything.” I was like, “wow! Can I take your picture?" So I did.
And it was funny because after I took the picture there was this song playing in the background, All I want for Christmas is You! And for me, it was just a comment that I was going to include in my photo diary but later, while crossing the bridge back to Juarez, I stayed in the middle just watching the people and I noticed that most of them were carrying bags. So I impulsively began asking them permission to take their picture. I never thought about everything that was going to unfold from this.
RR: Was it difficult to take photographs around the border area?
IL: I didn't think about it too much at the beginning but after two years I have to say that yes, it has been very hard. I have lived through all kinds of experiences since the CBP agents are now in the middle of the bridge. Of course they have tried to intimidate me by prohibiting me from taking pictures on their side of the bridge. And well, we know that this is an area with lots of tension, so connecting with the people I portray is hard.
RR: I can’t begin to imagine the difficulty. This project really hits home for me because my family is from the Matamoros/Brownsville border. We are border people too. We crossed that bridge so frequently and I remember this exact scene. Mexican people crossing to and from with bags of goods.
IL: Yes! it’s a tradition! We are kinda used to waiting hours in line to cross to the U.S. and go through a hostile revision processes just to go shopping.
RR: How do you think the people of El Paso are dealing with the horrible attack that happened?
IL: I don’t really know, it was horrible. Yesterday I was talking about it with a friend, we are both impressed by how well the city businesses have been spreading the quote “El Paso Strong" in front of their stores and billboards. The whole city has this quote, so there is a visual reminder everyday of the massacre. Also, Wal Mart has invested a lot (but a lot) in publicity online. There have been community gatherings to talk about this and something that stuck with me during a wonderful conference at the University of Texas is that a history professor was talking about the power of our own narratives when rhetoric is just perpetuating hate and violence. Which made me think about Mexican Shoppers too. Also, she was making us understand that even if we think that we don’t support racism, this is a system that we are all in... and about the will to be able to live in joy, which is something that I want as well as I am sure you do too. So I think that after the massacre, we are in a stage of dealing with this by educating ourselves and speaking out when things don’t feel right.
RR: Your interactions with some of the Mexican Shoppers; any memorable stories or people?
IL: Yes, the first day I took pictures of the shoppers I captured this guy who was carrying lots of bags; over half of a supermarket cart. I enjoyed looking at his portrait a lot when I arrived home because it made me think of what he bought, of his gestures, his body position, his transportation. Everything! But the second time I went to the bridge, which was very special for me as a sun-light-lover because I found a moment of light when the sun is going down and the artificial yellow lights of the bridge are turned on.. a moment in time which I have stuck with, but only lasts 20 minutes.. I saw this guy again, and then again, and then I realized that there are people that make a living by helping Mexican shoppers cross over the bridge when they are tired of carrying their own bags, something I had never noticed! So clueless!
But of the Mexican shoppers I have many. Strangely, in Tijuana-San Diego I interacted more with the people. And now that I think about it, it could have been because this person wasn’t crossing the bridge like others, which is a physical exercise itself, or that the ICE agents weren’t present, but I met a talented musician who was crossing with a huge TV box. So I portrayed him with it. He shared his music with me and told me that he just moved to Tijuana and was furnishing his apartment. When I sent him his portrait online he replied back telling me that his apartment had burned down the day after. I also met a woman who crossed just to buy tortillas in San Ysidro because she liked them more than the ones in Mexico. I couldn’t believe that! It reminds me of enchiladas verdes, which is the only Mexican dish where I really love how the U.S. version tastes. When there was a threat of closing up the borders at the beginning of this year, there was also a shopper who told me while laughing, “Oh, they are not going to do that, can you imagine? It is like putting a rope around their neck, the people who would have a crisis is them, not us!” And well, those are the ones that I can remember at the moment.
RR: Are you going to keep growing the project?
IL: It depends. I am at a moment in my life where I don’t really know what the future holds for me. I need to enroll in the university but it is too expensive for me right now and for the me that has to be the priority.
It’s a stressful situation because I want to continue this and my other projects but at the same time I have to figure out a way to make a living and it’s hard to try and handle both things at the same time. But I believe in this and will find a way to keep constructing it. I imagine that eventually we can have a collective portrait of the Mexican Shoppers from several U.S./ Mexican borders in these times.
RR: It’s important, especially now. Do you have any upcoming or exhibitions on view?
IL: Yes! I just received wonderful new that the first part of this series was chosen to be exhibited in one of the art panels at the San Diego International airport from March 2020 trough March 2021. Also, there are a couple of weeks left to see the exhibition La Frontera - The Border: Art Across the Border, which is an interdisciplinary examination that is currently on view at Chapman University in Orange California where part of this series is being shown as well.
RR: Thank you Ingrid.
IL: Thank you Raul.