Book Review: Images of Latin America

The photographs of Carlos Ugalde, a retired professor of Latin American and Chicano studies at Glendale Community College, document his journeys and experiences in Latin America, and in his recent photo essay Andar por los senderos de nuestra América his thematic arrangements illuminate the common experiences, travails, and inspiring transcendence of its activists, leaders, and victims. His originality and genius reflect his interest in people making history from below. When in 1966 he leaned at a dizzying angle from a steeple of Notre Dame to capture with his mother’s Brownie camera the panorama of Paris all the way to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur basilica, he did not realize that he was beginning a lifelong love affair with the photographic image and its power to convey the human condition. Now his photographs reflect his interest in documenting the lives and struggles of the peoples of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean (Cuba, Haiti), and the continent all the way to Tierra del Fuego, with particular attention to the Andean areas visited by Che Guevara on his iconic motorcycle journey.

Ugalde’s ability to capture in brilliant color the pain and joy in the faces of the people he met and their communities, rich cultural expressions, and stunning landscapes has created a lasting archive of images that have been exhibited in galleries in the United States, Cuba, Spain, and Mexico. His work reflects his almost uncanny ability to find himself in places where moments of historic significance are unfolding, such as the early taking of power by Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the speeches of Fidel Castro, the visit of Pope John Paul to Havana, the historic 1988 plebiscite in Chile, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, the arrival in Mexico City of the Zapatistas from Chiapas, and the funeral of Che Guevara in Santa Clara, Cuba, in 1997. At a Cuban mass rally his camera is focused not on Castro but on the people listening.

There are striking images here: the brilliant façade of the San Cristóbal basilica in vivid orange and yellow, obliquely depicted across a deep blue sky; another church front, shrouded in fog, with shadowy figures decipherable in the gloom; a Chilean fisherman, shot from above, standing precariously in his small boat on a gleaming carpet of fish and reaching for his pole. There are portraits of ordinary people and famous ones; men, women, and children (especially children) whose attitudes convey the daily reality of life and struggle; young men (and women) with weapons of war (rifles) or of survival (machetes); women in colorful garments at work in the fields; young girls holding their baby siblings, almost as big as they are, presumably sharing the duties of their overburdened mothers; men carrying, bundled across their shoulders, newly made brooms to market; refugee Guatemalan children in Chiapas; children at their desks in school in Sandinista Nicaragua. There are crowds celebrating May Day in Cuba; crowds demanding—then crowds elated over—the defeat of Pinochet in the 1988 Chilean plebiscite; a crowd gathered for the conclusion of the campaign of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1990. Ugalde was present during guerrilla insurgencies in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala and documented those who survived an earthquake in Haiti and key moments in Cuban history.

In all his photographic work, Carlos Ugalde has sought to convey a sense of hemispheric solidarity. In his own words, “One finds in Latin America a reality of immense suffering yet an incredible amount of hope and indomitable spirit. . . . I have not only photographed the people but have enjoyed with great pleasure sharing time, conversations and meals no matter how humble they may be. It is not only to take photographs but to learn from what one takes photographs of. . . . It is this experience, emotion, and human condition that I reach out to share with the viewer.” His vision has produced a lasting legacy, a testament to struggle, hope, joy, and beauty.