My Spanish was sharper after three months in Mexico when I noticed the crowds of Latino workers lining Seattle streets. It was incredible to chat with the migrants and share accounts of their homeland while they visited the Northwestern corner of America. In some cases, I had been to Mexico more recently than the workers. There was camaraderie from common knowledge of the distant, rugged land to the south.

I began to photograph the "jornaleros" in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle in 2001. I revisited the edit over the years and exhibited images in 2018 at City Hall. I photographed the workers again in 2024 with a reporter from the Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine. In the meantime, I've returned to Mexico over the course of decades, mostly with the same rangefinder camera and a few rolls of black and white film.