Don Bartletti's exhibition 'Roads' gets to heart of headlines

In "Chiapas Racers," a pair of riders clearly relish the moment as they gallop near a train filled with stowaways who shout greetings at them.

It's photography that goes by different names. Some prefer the term documentary; others, photojournalism. But labels aside, when this kind of picture works best, it gives flesh and blood, joy and anguish, to issues that could otherwise remain abstract.
Don Bartletti provides the vivid particulars in many of the 90-plus images at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. The pictures in "The Roads Most Traveled" span nearly two decades; their subject is migration, both in this region and as far afield as Tibet, Afghanistan and Kenya.

He made his reputation on pictures about people crossing the border from Mexico to the United States, illegally or legally. The earliest pictures are from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the situation began attracting national attention.

His career began at The Oceanside (Calif.) Blade-Citizen and The San Diego Union, but Bartletti has worked since 1983 for The Los Angeles Times. In much of the work on view, he displays an ability to compress the issue into a single image or set of images.

Take "Pressure From the South" (1990), in which dozens of people gather by a section of chain-link fence on the Mexican side. The dense crowd becomes an instantly legible symbol of the collective ambition to start a new life in the United States and the photographer's wall text adds a revealing coda: "By night, hundreds of people climb over, easily outnumbering the Border Patrol."

Looking at the oldest examples in his show, it's dismaying to realize how little progress has been made in federal immigration policy. Only days ago, the bill that passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Bush approves building a longer, stronger fence. But a tour through Bartletti's exhibition would make any logical person doubt the ability of any barrier to stem border-crossers.

Along with "Too Hungry to Knock" (1992), depicting young men hopping down from the fence on the American side, Bartletti offers this telling sentence: "For citizens of Latin America who are desperate for jobs, U.S. border enforcement and physical barriers are temporary delays in their quest."

The notion of a quest resonates through a good deal of the exhibition. It is central to more recent color images, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. They trace the 1,500-mile journey of Hondurans attempting to make the trip to the United States border by freight train.

Bartletti looks at the story of these Hondurans from two perspectives.

He shows us those who make the trip, braving unsympathetic authorities and brutal gangsters in Chiapas as well as dangerous travel conditions. In one dramatic image, a group of migrants atop a train car traveling at high speeds duck to avoid colliding with overhanging trees. In another, a 12-year-old makes a reckless leap from one train car to another; along with the image, Bartletti offers this heart-rending point: "He hopes to eventually reach San Diego, where his mother is working."

His pictures also provide a vivid vantage point on why many choose to make the trip: staying behind is too awful. In "Misery's Company" (2000) - made in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras - youngsters compete with vultures for food and items that can be sold. In "Orphans of the Night," also taken in Tegucigalpa, a pair of kids who live on the street beg for food and money; one aims a toy gun and a strange smile at the camera.

For those who make the trip, not all is horrific. There's a sweet moment, as a train moves through the state of Veracruz and a local extends an orange to the outstretched hand of one of the surreptitious passengers.

Bartletti comments that the reception for the migrants is as friendly in Veracruz as it is hostile in Chiapas.

Christine Wauna leaves her home in Kisumu, Kenya, for a different quest: to make enough money to send her 7-year-old son to school. To accomplish that, she becomes a nanny for an affluent family in Rome. We see her tending to a seemingly happy 1-year-old girl, in a room populated by stuffed animals.

But Bartletti also makes the trip to Kisumu, and in "Familial Devotion" (2005) pictures Christine's son, Edwin, being tended to by Lucas, his uncle. Christina, it turns out, is supporting Lucas' education at the university, too.

Bartletti's stories pull us in because they bring to life individuals - their dilemmas and their difficult solutions to these dilemmas. They show us people who migrate because they must, simply to eat and perhaps, if they're even luckier, to prosper. They also uproot themselves to make it possible for family members back home to put food on the table.

Throughout "The Roads Most Traveled," he identifies strongly with his subjects and so do we, if we're willing to open our eyes and hearts to their situations. The world in his pictures is often bleak, but it is not devoid of hope.

DATEBOOK

"The Roads Most Traveled: Photographs of Migration by Don Bartletti"

Through Jan. 14, 2007

Museum of Photographic Arts, 1649 El Prado, San Diego

Admission $6; $4 for seniors, students and military

For more information call 619-238-7559 or visit www.mopa.org.