Rebecca Senf, University of Arizona

Louis Carlos Bernal, a Chicano photographer born in the Arizona border town of Douglas in 1941, invented a style of art photography that honored his Mexican American culture. In the process, he created an indelible record of life in Southwestern barrios – low-income, primarily Spanish-speaking neighborhoods – in the 1970s and 1980s.

He died tragically in 1993 when he was just 52 years old. With his photographs in only a few museum collections, his legacy received little attention over the past three decades. Now, his powerful images are reaching new audiences through a bilingual book and exhibition of 120 photographs.

As chief curator of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, I’ve been working with Bernal’s photographs over the past decade. In 2014, his family donated his photographs, negatives, contact sheets, working materials and memorabilia, which allowed us to establish the Louis Carlos Bernal Archive at the center.

The exhibition, which runs from Sept. 14, 2024, to March 15, 2025, will feature the portraits of everyday Mexican Americans from his most famous series of photographs, “Barrios.” And thanks to the work of photography scholar Elizabeth Ferrer, we’ve learned even more about Bernal’s artistic technique, process and goals.

Capturing ‘Chicanismo’

As a child, Bernal was given a camera and became captivated by making photographs. He enrolled at Arizona State University thinking he would become a Spanish teacher, but his fascination with photography won out.

Bernal pursued various projects as he deepened his exploration of photography. He created collages featuring iconic images of former president John F. Kennedy, who, as the first Catholic president, was particularly revered in the Mexican American community. Responding to the Watergate hearings, and interested in the impact of media on public perception, he worked on a series in which he instructed family members to hold a life-size mask of Richard M. Nixon up to their faces. Emulating the work of one of his mentors, visual artist Frederick Sommer, he made abstract images using sculptural cut paper.

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Ultimately these experiments gave way to a rich and sustained project of photographing Mexican Americans and their homes.

In doing so, he turned his neighbors, relatives and other Chicanos living in the Southwest into his artistic subjects. Together, the images convey Bernal’s goal of expressing his Mexican American pride, known as “Chicanismo.”

In this way, he was a part of the Chicano art movement, which sought to address the political and cultural concerns of the Mexican American community. Chicano artists highlighted issues such as labor exploitation, immigration, gender roles and racial discrimination. Their goal was to upend stereotypes about Mexican Americans, critique the status quo and cultivate a shared cultural identity.

‘Art of and for the people’

Bernal’s photographs might remind some viewers of snapshots found in a family album, and they do share many qualities with family photographs: They feature people in everyday settings; the subjects are often centered, posing naturally and appearing relaxed; and he preferred color photography, which, by the 1970s, had become a popular way to document birthday parties, holidays and other family milestones.

Bernal, however, gave a lot of thought to the elements in each photograph. He had a process for making pictures just as he envisioned them.

Throughout the many photographs he took inside homes and businesses, and of gatherings of relatives and friends, he deliberately highlighted personal possessions: framed family photographs, altars, posters, religious icons, textiles, and floral and seasonal decorations. Beyond the people in the images, he wanted to convey themes of family, spirituality, home and community.

In a 1982 video interview, Bernal described his process, and how he would “(work) things out in advance in my head before going out.”

This allowed him to work quickly when he was in someone’s home, minimizing the imposition his presence might cause. He also liked to photograph variations of the same setting – for instance, a room with and without family members, or a scene in both color and black and white. Later, he reviewed all the options, selecting the best from a group of images with subtle differences.

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In this way, he was able to create photographs from the world around him based on his deep familiarity with Chicano life and culture. These images introduced a way of life to people beyond the barrios. But they held up a mirror for other Mexican Americans, who could easily recognize the scenes.

“The Chicano artist cannot isolate himself from the community,” Bernal said in 1984, “but finds himself in the midst of his people creating art of and for the people.”

Elevating the everyday

Bernal’s process can be seen in a pair of typical portraits.

In “6th Street Barrio, Douglas, Arizona, 1979,” Bernal photographs a young boy in the living room of his family’s home.

The boy represents one point of a triangular composition. A dark brown, upholstered couch acts as the other, while family photographs high on the yellow wall form the apex. Bernal situated himself across from the corner of the room, where a small end table covered with the family’s possessions sat.

The triangular arrangement of the photograph’s key elements – and the symmetry of the vertical line formed by the room’s corner at center – gives the image balance, stability and permanence, reflecting the way family and home serve as an anchor for the Chicano community.

In “Leon Speer’s Barber Shop, Felix Valdivezo & Daughter Patricia, Lordsburg, New Mexico, 1978,” Bernal places the wall of the barbershop parallel to his lens. This choice creates an organized, composed and easily understood environment in which to make a photograph of the barber, the customer and the customer’s daughter.

Through this perspective – and with some help from a row of mirrors and lights – Bernal captures a little world in its entirety, from the tiled floor reflecting sunlight to the collection of items on a shelf below the pressed-tin ceiling. In doing so, Bernal elevates an ordinary place and everyday people as something special to behold. Instead of the spontaneous and candid qualities you might expect from the casual documentation of, say, a child’s first haircut, Bernal has used a deliberate and formal approach, rendering a familiar subject art-worthy.

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Bernal’s legacy

Bernal was building this incredible document of contemporary Mexican American culture when his life was cut short.

He had built the photography program at Pima Community College, in Tucson, Arizona, and his photography practice was thriving. But in 1989, as he was biking to work, he was struck by a car. He spent the next four years in a coma, passing away on his birthday in 1993, at age 52.

Although he had achieved acclaim in the U.S., his career was more acknowledged in Mexico, where he had developed a strong community and thriving professional network. Following his death, his work was not widely circulated in the U.S.

With the establishment of his archive, the publication of “Louis Carlos Bernal: Monografía,” and the opening of a large exhibition celebrating his work, I hope his Chicano pride and artistic vision will be introduced to a new generation of viewers, cementing his legacy in the history of American art.

Rebecca Senf, Chief Curator, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/category/the-bridge

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Kevin Crooks, Colorado State University and Rebecca Niemiec, Colorado State University

Hunting large carnivores is a contentious issue in wildlife management and conservation. It’s on the ballot in fall 2024 in Colorado, where voters will consider Proposition 127, a proposed ban on hunting and trapping of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx in the state.

Wildlife agencies often use regulated hunting as a tool for controlling carnivore populations, reducing their impacts on vulnerable wildlife or minimizing the risk of conflict between carnivores and people, pets and livestock. But scientific studies have questioned how effectively recreational hunting achieves these goals. And public attitudes are shifting as participation in hunting declines.

We direct Colorado State University’s Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence and Animal-Human Policy Center. Together with our colleague Benjamin Ghasemi, we recently surveyed Colorado residents about their perceptions of hunting mountain lions and black bears in the state.

We found that support for hunting depended on the purpose, with most Coloradans disapproving of hunting for trophies or sport. Gender, age and other demographic factors also played roles.

Meet the neighbors

Mountain lions, also known as cougars or pumas, live primarily in the western U.S. and are legally hunted in all western states except California. Black bears, which live mainly in mountainous and forested regions across the continental U.S., are hunted in the majority of states in which they are found.

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife agency estimates that roughly 3,800 to 4,400 adult mountain lions and 17,000 to 20,000 black bears live in Colorado. They are found mainly in the Rocky Mountains, with the eastern edges of their ranges near more human-populated areas in the Front Range.

According to state data, hunters in Colorado killed 502 mountain lions during the 2022-2023 hunting season and 1,299 black bears during the 2023 season.

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Both species come into conflict with people in the state. The most common situation is when bears wander into mountain towns in search of garbage or other foods left by humans. Mountain lions are occasionally sighted in urban areas, and on rare occasions have attacked people. https://www.youtube.com/embed/-PCc77LZW_Y?wmode=transparent&start=0 Residents of Silverton, Colo., react after a mother bear that wandered into town in September 2024 was shot with a bean bag, intended as a nonlethal hazing method, and died.

Varying views of hunting

Our study gathered responses from Colorado residents through two public mail surveys. Samples were weighted to be representative of state population demographics, including age, gender, urbanization level, geographical region and participation in hunting.

Respondents’ views on legal and regulated hunting of mountain lions were evenly split, with 41% approving and 41% disapproving. This was also true for black bears: 46% approved of hunting them, and 46% disapproved.

Large majorities disapproved of hunting either animal for trophies, hide or fur, or for recreation. For mountain lions, 78% of respondents disapproved of trophy hunting; for black bears, 86% disapproved of trophy hunting. People also generally disapproved of hunting either species for meat.

Respondents were more supportive of hunts for other reasons. They approved of hunting mountain lions and black bears to protect human safety by 63% and 57%, respectively. And 56% approved of hunting mountain lions to reduce harm to livestock.

Large majorities disapproved of hunting mountain lions with dogs (88%) or recorded electronic calls (75%). Most mountain lions hunted in Colorado are legally taken with the aid of dogs, which chase and then tree or corner the cats. Using electronic calls to attract the cats was permitted in some parts of western Colorado until 2024, when the practice was banned for hunting mountain lions. It remains legal for hunting other carnivores, such as bobcats and coyotes.

Women, younger people, urban residents and people who identified as or leaned Democratic tended to be less supportive of hunting than men, older people, rural residents and Republicans. A study we published in 2022 on the reintroduction of wolves to Colorado found a similar political split, with stronger support for restoring wolves among people who identified as Democratic than among Republicans.

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How to coexist with carnivores?

Although Coloradans were generally supportive of using hunting to reduce human conflict with black bears and mountain lions, studies suggest that it might not be the most effective tool to do so.

For example, a recent experimental study in Ontario, Canada, concluded that increased hunting of black bears did not result in less conflict – particularly during years when the bear’s natural food sources, such as nuts and berries, were limited in the wild. A long-term study on bears in Durango, Colorado, also found that availability of natural foods in the wild, and the lure of human food within the city, were the main drivers of clashes with bears.

Conversely, another study in New Jersey – which is more densely developed than Colorado, so bears may be more likely to encounter people – found that well-regulated hunting of closely monitored black bear populations could help reduce conflict.

Similar to its policy with bears, Colorado uses hunting as a management tool for mountain lions. There is limited scientific evidence that hunting mountain lions may prevent conflict with them. A recent study found that juvenile mountain lions from a hunted site in Nevada tended to avoid developed areas. In contrast, young cats from a site in California without hunting did not show any preference for or against areas with people.

Yet, other correlative studies in Washington, California and Canada have suggested that hunting may make the problem worse. According to these researchers, hunting might disrupt the social dynamics and age structure of mountain lion populations, causing young cats seeking new territory to roam into populated areas, increasing their chances of encountering people.

Overall, we believe that more reliable scientific information is needed to guide carnivore management and test assumptions about how effective hunting is at addressing these problems. Continued focus on proactive, nonlethal strategies to prevent conflict is essential.

Ultimately, promoting coexistence between humans and carnivores is often much more about managing people than about managing predators. Changing human behavior is key.

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For example, failing to store garbage securely attracts bears. So does filling bird feeders in spring, summer and fall, when bears are active. Steps to reduce encounters with mountain lions include hiking in groups and making noise; keeping dogs leashed in the backcountry; keeping pets indoors at home; and not landscaping with plants that attract deer, the cat’s main prey.

Big cats on the ballot

Colorado’s Proposition 127 would ban hunting and trapping of mountain lions, bobcats and lynx in the state. It would allow for lethal removal of problem animals to protect human life, property and livestock.

Hunting and trapping of bobcats, mainly to sell their pelts in the fur trade, is currently legal in Colorado. On average, hunters and trappers have killed 880 bobcats annually over the past three years, the majority of which were trapped. Hunting and trapping are currently prohibited for lynx, which are listed as endangered in Colorado and threatened nationally, but the proposed ban would protect them if their populations recover.

Coloradans have voted to limit carnivore hunting in the past. They passed a ballot initiative in 1992 to ban bait, hounds and a spring hunting season for bears, and another in 1996 to ban the use of leghold traps, poison and snares.

Our research adds to growing evidence that public views toward hunting and carnivores are shifting. An increasing share of Americans believes humans should coexist with carnivores and opposes lethal control for human benefit. Studies also suggest that ballot measures like Proposition 127 may become more common as public attitudes evolve and more diverse groups seek to influence wildlife management.

It will be challenging for wildlife managers to adapt to these changing values. Agencies may have to consider more participatory methods that engage diverse stakeholders in decision-making, develop new funding mechanisms that are less reliant on hunting and fishing license fees, and reexamine how and for whom they manage wild animals.

This article has been updated with the current number of the Colorado ballot initiative on big cat hunting.

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Kevin Crooks, Professor of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology and Director, Center for Human-Carnivore Coexistence, Colorado State University and Rebecca Niemiec, Assistant Professor in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The science section of our news blog STM Daily News provides readers with captivating and up-to-date information on the latest scientific discoveries, breakthroughs, and innovations across various fields. We offer engaging and accessible content, ensuring that readers with different levels of scientific knowledge can stay informed. Whether it’s exploring advancements in medicine, astronomy, technology, or environmental sciences, our science section strives to shed light on the intriguing world of scientific exploration and its profound impact on our daily lives. From thought-provoking articles to informative interviews with experts in the field, STM Daily News Science offers a harmonious blend of factual reporting, analysis, and exploration, making it a go-to source for science enthusiasts and curious minds alike. https://stmdailynews.com/category/science/

Unleashing the Debate: Should Colorado Outlaw Mountain Lion Hunting?

Alisha Gaines, Florida State University

A peculiar desire seems to still haunt some white people: “I wish I knew what it was like to be Black.”

This wish is different from wanting to cosplay the coolness of Blackness – mimicking style, aping music and parroting vernacular.

This is a presumptive, racially imaginative desire, one that covets not just the rhythm of Black life, but also its blues.

While he doesn’t want to admit it, Canadian-American journalist Sam Forster is one of those white people.

Three years after hearing George Floyd cry “Mama” so desperately that it brought a country out of quarantine, Forster donned a synthetic Afro wig and brown contacts, tinted his eyebrows and smeared his face with CVS-bought Maybelline liquid foundation in the shade of “Mocha.” Though Forster did not achieve a “movie-grade” transformation, he became, in his words, “Believably Black.”

He went on to attempt a racial experiment no one asked for, one that he wrote about in his recently published memoir, “Seven Shoulders: Taxonomizing Racism in Modern America.”

For two weeks in September 2023, Forster pretended to hitchhike on the shoulder of a highway in seven different U.S. cities: Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Chicago and Detroit. On the first day in town, he would stand on the side of the road as his white self, seeing who, if anyone, would stop and offer him a ride. On the second day, he stuck out his thumb on the same shoulder, but this time in what I’d describe as “mochaface.”

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Since September is hot, he set a two-hour limit for his experiments. During his seven white days, he was offered, but did not take, seven rides. On seven subsequent Black days, he was offered, but did not take, one ride. He speculated that day was a fluke.

Forster is not the first white person to center themselves in the discussion of American racism by pretending to be Black.

His wish mirrors that of the white people featured in my 2017 book, “Black for a Day: White Fantasies of Race and Empathy.” The book tells the history of what I call “empathetic racial impersonation,” in which white people indulge in their fantasies of being Black under the guise of empathizing with the Black experience.

To me, these endeavors are futile. They end up reinforcing stereotypes and failing to address systemic racism, while conferring a false sense of racial authority.

Going undercover in the South

The genealogy begins in the late 1940s with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ray Sprigle.

Sprigle, a white reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, decided he wanted to experience postwar racism by “becoming” a Black man. After unsuccessfully trying to darken his skin beyond a tan, Sprigle shaved his head, put on giant glasses and traded his signature, 10-gallon hat for an unassuming cap. For four weeks beginning in May 1948, Sprigle navigated the Jim Crow South as a light-skinned Black man named James Rayel Crawford.

Sprigle documented dilapidated sharecropper’s cabins, segregated schools and women widowed by lynching. What he witnessed – but did not experience – informed his 21-part series of front page articles for the Post-Gazette. He followed up the series by publishing a widely panned 1949 memoir, “In the Land of Jim Crow.”

Sprigle never won that second Pulitzer.

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Cosplaying as Black

Sprigle’s more famous successor, John Howard Griffin, published his memoir, “Black Like Me,” in 1961.

Like Sprigle, Griffin explored the South as a temporary Black man, darkening his skin with pills intended to treat vitiligo, a skin disease that causes splotchy losses of pigmentation. He also used stains to even his skin tone and spent time under a tanning lamp.

During his weeks as “Joseph Franklin,” Griffin encountered racism on a number of occasions: White thugs chased him, bus drivers refused to let him disembark to pee, store managers denied him work, closeted, gay white men aggressively hit on him, and otherwise nice-seeming white people grilled him with what Griffin called the “hate stare.” Once Griffin resumed being white and news broke about his racial experiment, his white neighbors from his hometown in Mansfield, Texas, hanged him in effigy.

For his work, Griffin was lauded as an icon in empathy. Since, unlike Sprigle, he experienced racist incidents himself, Griffin showed skeptical white readers what they refused to believe: Racism was real. The book became a bestseller and a movie, and is still included in school curricula – at the expense, I might add, of African-American literature.

Griffin’s importance to this genealogy extends beyond middle-schoolers reading “Black Like Me,” to his successor and mentee, Grace Halsell.

Halsell, a freelance journalist and former staff writer for Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, decided to “become” a Black woman – first in Harlem in New York City, and then in Mississippi.

Without consulting any Black woman before baking herself caramel in tropical suns and using Griffin’s doctors to administer vitiligo-corrective medication, Halsell initially planned to “be” Black for a year. But after alleging someone attempted to sexually assault her while she was working as a Black domestic worker, Halsell ended her stint as a Black woman early.

Although her experiment only lasted six months, she still claimed to be someone who could authentically represent her “darker sisters” in her 1969 memoir, “Soul Sister.”

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Turn-of-the-century ‘race switching’

Forster writes that his 2024 memoir is the “fourth act” – after Sprigle, Griffin and Halsell – of what he calls “journalistic blackface.”

However, he is not, as he claims, “the first person to earnestly cross the color barrier in over half a century.”

In a 174-page book self-described as “gonzo” with only 17 citations, Forster failed to finish his homework.

In 1994, Joshua Solomon, a white college student, medically dyed his skin to “become” a Black man after reading “Black Like Me.” His originally planned, monthlong experiment in Georgia only lasted a few days. But he nonetheless detailed his experiences in an article for The Washington Post and netted an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Then, in 2006, FX released, “Black. White.,” a six-part reality television series advertised as the “ultimate racial experiment.”

Two families – one white, the other Black – “switched” their races to perform versions of each-otherness while living together in Los Angeles. While the makeup team won a Primetime Emmy Award, the families said goodbye seething with resentment instead of understanding.

A masterclass of white arrogance

Believing it would distract from the findings of his experiment, Forster refuses to show readers his mochaface.

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Even after confronting evidence forcing him to question his project’s appropriateness, like the multiple articles condemning “wearing makeup to imitate the appearance of a Black person,” he insists his insights into American racism justify his methods and are different from the harmful legacies of blackface. As he stands on the side of the road, sun and sweat compromising whatever care he took to paint his face, Forster concludes that racism can be divided into two broad taxonomies: institutional and interpersonal.

The former, he believes, “is effectively dead,” and the latter is most often experienced as “shoulder,” like the subtle refusal to pick up a mocha-faced hitchhiker.

Forster’s Amazon book description touts “Seven Shoulders” as “the most important book on American race relations that has ever been written.”

Indeed, it is a masterclass – but one on the arrogance of white assumptions about Blackness.

To believe that the richness of Black identity can be understood through a temporary costume trivializes the lifelong trauma of racism. It turns the complexity of Black life into a stunt.

Whether it’s Forster’s premise that Black people are ill-equipped to testify about their own experiences, his sketchy citations, the hubris of his caricature or the venom with which he speaks about the Black Lives Matter movement, Forster offers an important reminder that liberation can’t be bought at the drugstore.

Alisha Gaines, Associate Professor of English, Florida State University

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Bridge is a section of the STM Daily News Blog meant for diversity, offering real news stories about bona fide community efforts to perpetuate a greater good. The purpose of The Bridge is to connect the divides that separate us, fostering understanding and empathy among different groups. By highlighting positive initiatives and inspirational actions, The Bridge aims to create a sense of unity and shared purpose. This section brings to light stories of individuals and organizations working tirelessly to promote inclusivity, equality, and mutual respect. Through these narratives, readers are encouraged to appreciate the richness of diverse perspectives and to participate actively in building stronger, more cohesive communities.

https://stmdailynews.com/category/the-bridge