Photo by Misty Lindsey 2010

“I never even gave the United States much thought,” said José Luís Aguilar Rangel, 38, as he stood over his son’s coffin, which lay next to the coffin of his nephew Horacio. “But Mexico has abandoned us, betrayed us.

“Shame on them,” he said, alluding to authorities he described as too corrupt to ever bring justice or restore faith.

Alfredo Corchado – Dallas Morning News

Colonia Palo Chino is Juarez. It’s a reflection of the whole. It’s a place where shootouts happen and where people die. But more than anything else, more than any other label, Colonia Palo Chino is my neighborhood, my home. It’s where my new family resides, where I’ve spent most of the past 1 1/2 years of my life, had my most difficult battles and made it through more than I ever thought I could handle. It’s because I see God in every face and I feel the rumblings of Hope, the vibrations of Zion, the unforced rhythms finding there way to my spirit.

This is Juarez. Families. Boys and girls, young dreamers believing that anything is possible.

This is Juarez. Beauty in every face.

“When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound–our own and others’–and it can finally heal.”

~Desmund Tutu