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  • Supporters of Hipólito Mejía, 2012 Presidential candidate for the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), parade through the city of Cotui, Province of Sánchez Ramirez. Having served as President of the Dominican Republic from 2000 to 2004, Mejía's previous term is tarnished by one of the worst economic crisis in the country's history. Seen as a frontrunner in the 2012 elections, Mejia's slogan is simple: "Llegó Papá" (Spanish for "Daddy has arrived").

  • A man from the march stares at images of the war-time detained-disappeared posted on a street wall in Guatemala City. After 9 days and 212 kilometers, the Indigenous, Campesino and Popular March for the defense of Mother Earth, against evictions, criminalization, and in favor of Integrated Rural Development, arrived to the Capital City. According to members of the Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC), it is estimated that about 15,000 people participated in the ninth and final day of the march.

  • Local anti-mining activists and sympathizers, led by Elida Lopez Tojil, prepare for celebratory events related to the inauguration of Delfino Tema Bautista as Municipal Mayor of Sipacapa. Tema's Sipakapa Civic Committee, formed and integrated by Sipakapan Mayans who oppose the operation of Goldcorps Marlin gold mine in their territory, won a historic election on September 2007.

  • Dozens gather to commemorate the twenty-seventh anniversary of the Rio Negro Massacre at Pak'oxom Peak. On March 13, 1982, the Guatemalan army and civil patrolmen from neighboring Xococ rounded up residents of Rio Negro, marched them uphill to Pak'oxom, and brutally raped and massacred 177 women and children. Nearly 400 community members of Rio Negro were killed in four separate massacres in the early 1980's due to the community's resistance to give up their lands and make way for the Chixoy hydroelectric project. Rabinal, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. March, 2009.

  • Habana Vieja, 2009.

  • Children from El Pedernal in Honduras' Siria Valley bathe in a stream adjacent to Goldcorp's San Martin Gold Mine. Women and children are particularly prone to illnesses due to water contamination. Hundreds of residents from the communities in the Siria Valley suffer from skin diseases as rivers and streams have been found to contain elevated levels of heavy metals.

  • Rosaro de Villatoro and Samuel Villatoro hold an image of Amancio Samuel Villator, detained-disappeared on January 30, 1984. After 27 years searching for the late husband and father, the remains of Amancio Samuel were identified by FAFG forensic anthropologists. Amancio Samuel's remains were among the hundreds of bodies recovered from Comalapa's Military Garrison. Guatemala City, Nov. 2011.

  • Cemetery in Nebaj, Quiché, Guatemala.

  • The municipality from the mining town of Bonanza uses empty cyanide barrels as public trash cans. Bonanza is one of three boom towns in the so-called Mining Triangle in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN), Nicaragua.

  • Activists deface political advertisement of former General Otto Perez Molina's Patriota Party. Perez Molina, running in the 2007 presidential elections on a hardline stance against crime, is accused of perpetrating acts of genocide against the civil population during the internal armed conflict in the 1980's.

  • One year after residents of Barrio La Unión suffered two violent evictions at the hands of Canadian-owned Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN) on January 2007, the Q'eqchi' Mayan community members continue their non-violent resistance on the land they claim as ancestral territory.

  • Thousands march through downtown Los Angeles in support of Occupy Together's Global Day of Action.

  • As Catholic traditions prevail in Guatemala, each town carries out its largest annual festival on its patron saint day. The municipality of Todos Santos (Spanish for all saints) celebrates its yearly fair on November 1st, All-Saints Day. It is customary in Guatemala to commemorate the deceased on that date by visiting cemeteries and placing offerings to those who have passed on. Here in Todos Santos Cuchumatán, a unique horse race is also carried out as part of the celebrations.

  • Graffiti defaces political advertisement of former General Otto Perez Molina's Patriota Party. Perez Molina, running in the 2007 presidential elections on a hardline stance against crime, is accused of perpetrating acts of genocide against the civil population during the internal armed conflict in the 1980's.

  • In Guatemala, June 30th is officially observed as Armed Forces Day. But since 2008, the military parade has ceased to march through the streets of the historical center in Guatemala City. Instead, the March for Remembrance, promoted since 1999 by the HIJOS collective, has taken over Zone 1 for the fourth consecutive year to celebrate what many believe should more appropriately be deemed Heroes and Martyrs Day.

  • Residents of Cedros Ejido celebrate a wedding. Since the 2005 establishment of Goldcorp's Peñasquito mine in the arid semi-desert municipality of Mazapil, Mexico, local communities have complained that Latin America's largest gold producing mine has drastically diminished the scarce water sources available and enticed land disputes.

  • Team members from the National Police Historical Archives restore and preserve documents. On July 5, 2005, the historical archives of the now dissolved National Police were found in an abandoned arms depot in the outskirts of Guatemala City. The discovery of these millions of documents, which were allegedly lost after the 1996 Peace Accords, provide important evidence in the search for the thousands of people who were detained-disappeared during the armed conflict.

  • A few blocks from downtown San Salvador, Lazaro has established a makeshift electronics shop along the sidewalk in order to make a living.

  • Thousands march through downtown Los Angeles in support of Occupy Together's Global Day of Action.

  • A local woman cooks dinner in the kitchen of the abandoned home of the former owners of the Cuchil landholding. After the global coffee crisis in the early 2000's, dozens of landowners, mostly of European descent, abandoned their coffee landholdings in the Polochic River valley. In San Miguel Tucurú, several local Q'eqchi' and Pocomchí Mayan communities, often considered slave labor and part of the property's goods, took over the abandoned landholdings and began a process of legalization while attempting to continue coffee production and surviving on sustainable agriculture methods.

  • Doña Elena gazes out of her gated porch. High levels of violent crime and minimal percentages of judicial investigations have driven Salvadorians to lock themselves up in homes wrapped in gates and barbed wire.

  • Salt mining in Uyuni. Bolivian state-run mining company Comibol has been exploring lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, since 2010. The Salar de Uyuni sits at 3,600 meters above sea level and has a total surface area of 10,582 square kilometers.

  • A girl brushes her doll's hair from a balcony. Zacatecas, Mexico.

  • Local anti-mining activists and sympathizers prepare for celebratory events related to the inauguration of Delfino Tema Bautista as Municipal Mayor of Sipacapa. Tema's Sipakapa Civic Committee, formed and integrated by Sipakapan Mayans who oppose the operation of Goldcorp's Marlin gold mine in their territory, won a historic election on September 2007.

  • Boy carries beanstalks using a traditional mecapal. After the global coffee crisis in the early 2000's, dozens of landowners, mostly of European descent, abandoned their coffee landholdings in the Polochic River valley. In San Miguel Tucurú, several local Q'eqchi' and Pocomchí Mayan communities, often considered slave labor and part of the property's goods, took over the abandoned landholdings and began a process of legalization while attempting to continue coffee production and surviving on sustainable agriculture methods.

  • Sunset over La Habana, 2009.

  • For over 200 years, Garifuna communities, descendants of shipwrecked would-be African slaves, have inhabited most of the Central American Atlantic coast. Since the mid 1990's, mega-tourism projects, particularly around the Honduran coastal town of Tela, threaten not only the continuity of the communities but the survival of the UNESCO-declared world heritage Garifuna culture and language as well.

  • A vegetable merchant feeds her pet parrots while awaiting patrons in San Salvador's central market.

  • Local men fish at dawn over the former San Lucas Toliman pier. Water levels rose to unprecedented levels during the 2010 rainy season.

  • As Catholic traditions prevail in Guatemala, each town carries out its largest annual festival on its patron saint day. The municipality of Todos Santos (Spanish for all saints) celebrates its yearly fair on November 1st, All-Saints Day. It is customary in Guatemala to commemorate the deceased on that date by visiting cemeteries and placing offerings to those who have passed on. Due to large-scale migration to the United States and Canada, many graves in the Guatemalan highlands display the influx of remittance money.

  • Easter celebrations in Guatemala City's historic center provide a much-needed income earning opportunity for the thousands of Guatemalans who depend on the informal economic sector to survive.

  • Numerous locks seal the entrrance to a street-side jewelry store. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, 2007.

  • One of the region's most unique and perplexing expressions of Mayan-Catholic syncretism involves the worship of Maximón or Saint Simon. Every October 28th, catholic feast day for Saint Simon, thousands of pilgrims from all over Guatemala and neighboring countries flock to San Andres Itzapa, Chimaltenango, to worship the effigy lovingly known as Monchito. Once inside, devotees can profess their faith in any way they chose to or even hire a curandera who will carry out spiritual limpias, or cleansings in front of the effigy.

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