. by Julie Platner A young boy sniffs glue on the banks of the Rio Grande riverbed in Tijuana 100 feet from the US Border. Mexican Marines transport a captured drug trafficker to a base in Tijuana, Mexico. A drug trafficker who has been caught is presented to the media by the Mexican Marines. A women who was caught transporting drugs near the border of Juarez, Mexico is put behind bars and presented to the media in efforts to show that something is being done to combat Mexico's drug trade. A boy smokes marijuana in his neighborhood, Le Libertad, Tijuana, just across from the US border. Libertad is a notoriously rough neighborhood infested with stash houses and drug smugglers. Teenage boys pose for a group picture with their crew while flashing their gang's signs. Most neighborhood kids look up to the drug lords because, "they are the guys with the money and the girls." Cartels do their recruiting in these neighborhood barrios where young, poor children are eager to play with the, "big boys." An addict gets a shot of heroin in his arm in the riverbed of the Rio Grande where many homeless addicts live. A Baja Films' crew shoots a film on the streets of Tijuana. Films glorifying drug traffickers have become a major business. Oscar Lopez, the company's owner says, "the majority of the money is made on US sales." Heroin addicts hang out in the Rio Grande riverbed in Tijuana, about 100 feet from the US Border. They show off their tattoos of women, including La Santa Muerte, the Saint of Death. As the drug war rages, La Santa Muerte has moved into mainstream culture from its beginnings in the decidedly more underground occult. She has transformed from a syncretic religious Saint to a cultural and oftentimes cult expression of, ironically, the Mexican irreverence towards death. Los Bukanas De Culiacan, a band playing narcocorridos, performs at a popular club on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Song lyrics are graphic and centered around the bloody violence of the drug war. The band's manager explains that just as rap music is cathartic for inhabitants of many poverty stricken areas of the United States, narcocorrido music gives a voice to the millions of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans growing up in the shadows of the drug war. A young man stands holding his gun outside of a recording studio in Culiacán, Mexico that primarily records artists singing narcocorridos. Studio owners expressed their concern about getting, "shot up. It happens." Singers must remain loyal to the cartel that commissions them. Once they sign on with one, they, and the studios they record at, are open to retaliation from rival cartels. A young man rolls marijuana cigarettes in a recording studio in Sinaloa. Sinaloa, in Mexico's drug-rich state of Culiacán, is home to all of the most notorious drug cartel leaders. For decades, Sinaloa has been Mexico's breadbasket. The local economy used to be dominated by soybeans and sesame seeds but now grows mostly marijuana and poppies to be refined into heroin that is destined for U.S. markets. Club-goers dance at a popular narcocorrido club on the outskirts of Los Angeles. A narcocorrido band plays at a private birthday party in Sinaloa, Culiacán. Private parties are common "gigs" for narcocorrido singers. Often, the private parties are for the cartel bosses, themselves. It is common for band members to be tied-up, blindfolded, and driven up into the mountains of Sinaloa to perform for the cartel bosses, their friends and families in their remote estates. A US Border Patrol agent stands behind glass that has been "shot up," on the US Border. "It happens a few times a month. They (drug smugglers) shoot our windows, as a warning." MAY 2013 BACK ISSUE Back to current issue