Monday, February 15, 2016

The Story of the Reyes Salazar Family From Mexico's Death Valley: Guadalupe, Chihuahua, in the Juarez Valley (PART 1 OF 3: POOR JUAREZ: SO FAR FROM GOD, SO CLOSE TO THE UNITED STATES


    Last family portrait taken of the entire Reyes Salazar family Christmas 2009, a few days later Josefina (in the middle) was    murdered. (photo from the video linked below)
FIVE YEARS AGO THIS MONTH The Reyes Salazar family buried their last three family members to die in Mexico; Siblings Magdalena and Elías Reyes and Elías's wife Luisa Ornelas were kidnapped in the Juárez Valley on Feb. 7, 2011 and their bodies dumped on the highway two weeks later. For the remaining family members this was the last straw, not only did they decide to all vacate their homes in the town of Guadalupe but after having six relatives murdered they knew they had to leave Mexico. The Reyes Salazar were, and still are, good friends of mine. I got to know them well from my participation in a long struggle to defeat a proposed nuclear waste dump on the Texas border--they helped lead the opposition to the dump in the Juárez Valley-- This is the second Hobo Dispatch report about them, including video footage of my first return to Guadalupe in seventeen years in Sept. 2015.
Watch this 15 minute video "We Bake Bread With Our Hands; We Denounce Injustice With Our Words: The Story of the Reyes Salazar Family" and travel to Guadalupe to see what has become of their beloved hometown.



Click here to read Melissa del Bosque's great 2012 article "The Deadliest Place in Mexico" written after she visited Guadalupe


CLICK HERE TO READ 2011 HOBO DISPATCH POST ABOUT THE REYES SALAZAR FAMILY AND THE CARAVAN FOR PEACE WITH JAVIER SICILIA