Title: Guerrero Viejo
First published: 1997
Description: Celebrated as a triumphant collaboration between the American and Mexican governments, the damming of the Rio Grande in the early 1950s was expected to prove highly beneficial to the valley inhabitants of both countries. The success of this project, however, necessitated the gradual submersion of the colonial city of Guerrero beneath the water of the man-made reservoir. The inhabitants were uprooted and displaced, robbed of their land, their sense of community, their places of worship, study, and play--even their graves. Guerrero Viejo--simultaneously in Spanish and English text--is a haunting tale of power and priorities, of a place sentenced to die. Weaving oral interviews and personal investigation, Elena Poniatowska chronicles the historical and social development of Guerrero from its founding to its abandonment by all but a few residents. Their narratives and memories offer a vibrant vision of this historic colonial town which is juxtaposed to Guerrero's current state as captured in Richard Payne's photography. Through sensitive prose and eloquent black and white photographs, this book reclaims the city of Guerrero and offers a valuable lesson for the world today.

Guerrero is the moving story of a once proud colonial town in Mexico, destroyed by 20th century progress. Between 1950 and 1954, the Mexican and U.S. government constructed the Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande to control flooding downstream. The dam was engineered so that the reservoir's backwaters would inundate the town of Guerrero; as compensation, the Mexican government built a new city nearby to rehouse the displaced residents.

Without warning, a flash food in 1953 prematurely filled the reservoir, forcing Viejo Guerrero citizens to flee, a traumatic incident still vividly recalled. The haunting story of Guerrero is poignantly described in the words of Elena Poniatowska, one of Mexico's greatest living writers, and in the visual images of Richard Payne, one of Texas's best known photographers.

The ravages of time, in ironic revenge, have gradually exposed the pristine stone framework of its remaining buildings, delineating the outlines of a town that has been, in a twist of fate, reborn, like an ancient Greek temple. Guerrero Viejo, in spite of the devastation of time and nature, of floods and abandonment, is a place that will not die.

This is a sorrowful tale, but one which reaffirms the emotional and spiritual connection we all have to the place we call home, and the power and magic of community.
Subjects: History, Pictorial works, Ethnicity, Historia
Places: Guerrero (Tamaulipas, Mexico), Mexico) Guerrero (Tamaulipas