THE STRUGGLE FOR INCOME (AND SHELTER) - A PHOTOESSAY OF A MEXICAN MIGRANT FAMILY

This photo-essay illustrates the way in which a low-income households struggle for shelter is conditioned by their search for an adequate in come. It centres on the life of one Mexican family from Matamoros. Fir st, it describes and illustrates the life of the mother and her eight children in August 1996, when the husband and the eldest son are in th e United States working as migrant farm labourers. The mother and thre e of the children sort garbage at the city's municipal dump and the fa mily lives in a home they have constructed nearby. The paper then desc ribes how the mother and the children travelled to Florida to work wit h her husband and eldest son, where all but the youngest could work pi cking strawberries, and describes and illustrates their life there.