Lost in Wyoming
Thursday, September 3, 2009, 01:36 PM
The blog updates continue, I wrote this the night I arrived in Denver right after my time in Laramie, Wyoming. There is one more blog post to go before I begin the Colorado entries. Enjoy.

Denver, Colorado
25 July 2009
10:51pm MST

Getting lost on a rural Wyoming road is not a bad thing. The wind has secrets.
The earth broke open to make room for mystical red rock formations anchored by lush green grasses, some began to creep up into the edges of the road to say hello.

I spent most of Friday afternoon on Wyoming State Route 34 looking for Carlos, his address is just a few miles North of the Wyoming/Colorado border. Red streaks of mud covered my car as I made my way outside of Laramie, stopping twice for directions (once at a Veterinary clinic, once at a cement plant because google maps lie I tell you) and yet I only found his mailbox. I even stopped at what I thought must have been the ranch next door—mosquitoes feasting yet again on my wrists and knees—but the neighbor, a craggy rancher with blankets tacked up on his walls for curtains, didn’t know of the Jimenez ranch.

“Well you know the Colorado border is right there at Camel Rock,” he said. Perhaps he lives further down the road across the border. “Even with a Laramie address?” He nodded. I thanked him, smacking mosquitoes dead while trying not to scratch. Suddenly I was aware of the fact that I was alone with a stranger in a land that is completely unforgiving. Time to go. “I never knew I was a city person until the mosquitoes.” I said by way of apology.

The road of red dust beckoned as clouds rolled in. I caught some air coming over a hill, the car seemed to enjoy the adventure as much as me and it no longer mattered that I might not find this Puerto Rican rancher in Wyoming today.

Families of antelope galloped elegantly away as the sound of a car got closer. Cows crossed the road, taking their sweet time. I stopped, chuckling and afraid. They stared back at me, unimpressed. Finally they made their way across to graze, not without some resentment. This place—where the Northwest and the Southwest dance and collide across the landscape—puts you in your place. There is no doubt, mother nature is completely in charge.

A small group of cowboys herding horses on the prairie turn toward the sound of my car, their faces cracking open into the biggest smiles I have ever seen. How many times in your life can you say you have seen something, in person, that you have never seen before? Wyoming cowboys! They laughed at my pleased astonishment. These men wear Wranglers because they are working the land, not going to brunch in L.A. Much respect to that most American of visual icons: the cowboy.

People wave hello as they pass by in their pickup trucks, happy to see another human being. I like that. A simple recognition of another in this place that more animals than people call home.

There is a reason for this. Most people could not hack it, Wyoming winters are long and the sun mocks your straw hat and sunscreen. At 8,300 feet in the air, oxygen is thin and physical movement is slow, deliberate. In town there are an abundance of drive-through liquor stores and billboards warning of the dangers of meth use. Winters are long.

Wandering around the downtown Laramie farmer’s market, I met a woman named Stephanie. Her parents came to Laramie from Mexico. She is a Laramie-born Chicana and I could see how this stark and ruggedly beautiful land has shaped her. Her eyes were clear and flinty, there was a steeliness in her gaze that made me admire the chance her family took in coming to this place so long ago.

She was very curious about what I’d discovered about the Puerto Rican experience here in Wyoming. To choose to live in such a different and sometimes alien place—what drives us as humans to migrate away from all that we find comforting and familiar?

A chance. An opportunity. The possibility—even just the possibility of a better life—it was worth it for her family.

The United States is by no means a perfect place and yet people from all over the world sometimes risk their lives during the journey to our shores. So clearly there must be something that is magical, something worth giving up the life you had without hesitation, that is uniquely American. This experiment of Democracy. Imperfect and bumbling and forever striving for perfection.

There is beauty in the messiness of life, grace in our constant effort to be, live, do better. In this journey we are all Americans.


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Puerto Ricans in Wyoming
Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 01:28 PM
Yes, I did type that title correctly. While the state of Wyoming ranks last in the nation for population size, there are indeed Puerto Ricans in Wyoming and I managed to find a few of them during my time there in July. My apologies for not blogging directly from the road, a laptop will materialize soon so this will be possible again. This week I'll be updating the American Boricua blog with stories from my summer 2009 travels for the book.

Laramie, Wyoming
July 23, 2009
5:40pm MST

We're 8,200 feet in the air and the Rocky Mountains cradle this little University town in dust and open sky. This has to be the only place where people must fight the unrelenting presence of the sun. It is nearly 6pm and all of the curtains are drawn. Otherwise this house would bake like a hot potato.

Cecilia, known as Cici, is an artist and Professor at The University of Wyoming here in Laramie. Originally from Albuquerque, she met her now husband Jed in Arizona at a grocery store. Jed moved from Puerto Rico to the U. S. with his family as a boy, they settled in Sandy, Utah, now part of Salt Lake City proper. He told me he remembers a girl from Guatemala in his elementary school class, otherwise his family was Puerto Rican in a sea of White America. Jed works as a Physician’s Assistant in Cheyenne.

Yesterday I went hiking with Cici and their lively two-year-old daughter Skye in Vedauwoo, Wyoming. She exclaimed throughout the day, “I jump Mama!” as we walked amongst boulders, butterflies and rock climbers in the distance. We all felt the occasional fatigue of high altitude kick in. Honestly. I am not that out of shape, I kept huffing through the trail and thinking to myself. Especially traversing some pretty big crevasses with a small army of neighborhood kids Cici brought along ages eleven, seven, and four. Despite a bit of whining toward the end of the hike (is it possible to slightly sprain one’s toe? Ouch.) we emerged triumphant. I shooed bold chipmunks away while snacks were devoured.

Oh. The Wyoming mosquito is not a creature to mess with. I haven’t seen welts on my arms and legs so big since the last time I was in Puerto Rico as a kid. Don’t touch the welts. Hurts worse. Yep.

So of the 89 or so Puerto Ricans the 2000 Census says are in Wyoming, our least populated state, I have so far found two and photographed one. There is a Carlos here in town that may be a rancher of sorts. So I have a call into him and his address. Perhaps I will show up at his house and introduce myself and American Boricua to see if he would like to be a part of la familia.

Skye knows how to chant in the wilderness. While hiking we suddenly heard a bird. Then another. Cici stopped and whispered, “Listen! Listen! The birds, they’re talking to each other.” Then Skye turned her little round face up toward the sky and began to howl a joyous sweet howl. The other kids joined in and Cici turned to me. “I taught them all how to chant when we’re out in here hiking.” Saying hello to the land, to the animals? I ask. She smiles and nods yes. I found myself howling (and panting a bit in the high altitude) too.

How can I begin to explain the spare beauty of a Wyoming wind?

What I noticed during my first few hours here—was it really less than 48 hours ago?—was the quiet. A softness in the air that brings the seductive hush of prairie grasses to your ear like a familiar whisper. If you ever journey here, you will not shake the feeling that you have been here before.


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Puerto Rican Life in the American West
Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 12:36 PM
Finally! Our first formal exhibition for American Boricua has opened here on the West Coast. If you are in the Seattle area, go see it! We're working on booking more Western cities for this show. Have ideas where? Contact me here on the blog!

I was very touched that some folks drove all the way up from Olympia (this is an hour away) to see this work. Gracias to all that were able to attend the opening last Friday.

Here is the information, please forward to everyone!

Wanda Benvenutti: Boricua
Puerto Rican Life in the American West
August 28-September 24, 2009

Jacob Lawrence Gallery
University of Washington School of Art
Seattle, WA

Gallery Phone:206-685-1805

Seattle-based photojournalist Wanda Benvenutti's book in progress,
American Boricua: Puerto Rican Life in the United States, travels out
West in this new exhibition of work. Puerto Rican cultural life, showcased in
photographs and interviews, has spread throughout the entire American Western
landscape. From tattoo artists in Utah to poets in Northern California,
see for yourself what the changing face of America looks like.


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Why exploding cars are not so helpful
Thursday, June 18, 2009, 10:32 AM
Okay. So here is the story. This car, hoopty really, that I have been driving on borrowed time finally kicked the bucket. At one a.m. this morning, the engine just...had enough of this life. Thankfully I was with a friend so waiting for the tow truck was not too terrible an experience. Last week the mechanic warned me that the cracked head gasket would probably kill the car, and it most likely would NOT make it to California...but did I listen?!?

Never!

So here is the moral of the story: when you are driving around the entire United States, interviewing and photographing, you really need to drive a good car. The constant smoke from under the hood, the sounds from the deep bowls of the engine, the smell (don't get me started on the smell!) was so bad it wafted toward us from three blocks away. I had this entire system of daily hoopty survival:

Rev the engine to get it to kick over
Use the emergency brake to stop
Keep the car in neutral at stop signs (prevents stalls)
Put water in the radiator at least once a day
Stay away from steep hills
Ignore the stares of people on the street who cannot believe that you are actually driving a car that looks like its been to hell and back (wait...it came from a car auction, perhaps that is an accurate description)
Pray for a new car

The car, (her name was muñeca), she was such a metaphor for this book, seriously. American Boricua is something that has its hold on me and a dead car is not going to stop me from anything. Especially finishing American Boricua.

Okay world. I am ready for that new car now. Standard, good gas mileage, a radio that works! A car that doesn't make me cringe when I park it at the store because I have to wonder if it will start again. A car that is safe and reliable.

Drumroll....The Boricuamobile!

God bless the Boricuamobile. Amen.

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Puerto Ricans on Election Day in Portland, Oregon
Sunday, November 9, 2008, 08:04 PM
The best way to describe my 15-hour day in Portland is how I felt after it was over. Have you ever experienced a joy hangover?

Now, no matter where you land on the political spectrum, last Tuesday was the kind of day your Grandchildren will ask you about. Kind of like when kids ask their parents about the 1960s!

It is a new day, and the morning of November 4, 2008 I climbed into my ugly-yet-reliable car and drove to Portland at 6:18 a.m. To be in I-5 South, with rain coming at you sideways in a truly Northwest Experience. NPR keeps you company but after the first hour it begins to repeat stories so I ended up searching for anything to keep me awake. As I got closer to the Obama campaign volunteer center on the corner of Killingsworth and 15th Avenue N.E., I started to hear what sounded like a party. Music blaring, people bustling about, volunteers arriving with homemade plates of food. I saw a Black man playing African drums by the entrance, an elderly White gentleman out on the street, megaphone in hand, chanting "Obama" over and over again. He said it with an enormous grin, and it sounded like an exclamation of joy. Never in my life could I have imagined seeing elderly Black women dancing, DANCING, to the ballot box. People were in tears, hugs were freely given and received. One volunteer, a retired Mexican-American woman, pulled me aside and said the volunteers had been working together for nearly a year. "We just don't show up to canvass." She said with a knowing nod. "We're like family now. We're going to stay in each other's lives."

A few people looked at me suspiciously as I began to load my camera and I smiled and do what I always do: patiently identify myself and explain that I am there waiting for someone to photograph for American Boricua. It always astonishes me when people ask questions and have such a sincere interest in our culture. People are much more open-hearted and curious than we give ourselves credit.

Finally, Nanci arrived on the scene with a friend that had come up from Northern California to work on the campaign. Nanci Luna Jimenez, originally from Detroit, Michigan, runs her own company that offers cultural diversity seminars and training. A dear friend of mine who lives in Portland insisted I meet her after hearing her keynote speech at a recent conference. He even called DURING the seminar. He's not even Latino but really appreciated her warmth, wisdom, and humor.

I spent the afternoon photographing and interview Nanci about her life and experience as a Boricua in the Northwest. She spoke to many voters, (one even invited us in for tea and offered her a jacket to keep warm as the day got cold and damp!) and explained why many people in her community have not felt like they are a part of the political process until now. Her articulate comments caught the ear of a local television reporter and before we left to canvass she was interviewed by him. Funny that this happened because when I was in Idaho spending the day with Yolanda Matos, she was interviewed by the local press as well. Must be something in the air, eh? Either that or its just plain power in the numbers. Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in the United States. More on Nanci and my Oregon experience soon.

Gracias to Eddie Resto in Los Angeles for this new Spanglish word: Obamanos.

Obamanos, indeed.



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