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Mennonite Farmland

Chihuahua, Mexico. 1997. © Larry Towell / Magnum Photos

“The story of the Mennonites is a story of migration. The Old Colony migrated to Canada in the late 19th century after fleeing persecution in Europe, and later in Ukraine. Beginning in the 1920s, they left their Canadian colonies lured to Mexico by cheaper land. As the Mexican economy collapsed in the 1980s, many would begin to migrate north again as seasonal farm laborers.

I met these families in the vegetable fields of my own backyard of rural Ontario, where I spent the summers with them and where they eventually invited me back to their Old Colony worlds. When I began in 1990, most of the Mexican settlements had no electricity, no vehicles and no modern amenities. They spoke only Low German. By the time I finished a decade later, their communities had modernized with the introduction of electricity and vehicles. I bore witness to changes in culture and identity that many made as a result of being forced to crisscross the continent in hope of a new beginning.”

Larry Towell


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