Dispatch from Juarez: Snapshots of Peace, on the Society Pages

Amid raging violence, families and friends still find joy.

By Hatty Lee Oct 05, 2010

A raging drug war, fueled by political corruption and the demand of the U.S. black market, has killed tens of thousands in Mexico. The city of Juarez sits across the border from El Paso, Texas. It has been devastated by this violence–over 7,000 of its people have been killed. The population used to be 1.5 million, but at least 100,000 have fled. Families struggle to maintain normalcy amid this terror.

Journalist Debbie Nathan raised her own family in El Paso where, as she writes in her Dispatch, people in both cities "tried to live as though the border was a bond between two countries, not a gash. We did all kinds of things together, including sharing family happiness. Weddings, baptisms, baby showers, quinceaneras–photographers were on hand and if you were lucky, you saw yourself the next day on the Society pages of El Diario, Juarez’s daily newspaper."

Below are a selection of such images from El Diario’s recent Society pages. These snapshots of celebration were published in the same newspaper in which editors recently printed a letter to narcotraffickers asking, simply, what the paper could do to stop having its journalists murdered. –Editors

All photos by El Diario de Juarez.