Menguante is a photo series documenting my Afro-Latino ancestral roots and the inherited agricultural wisdom that anchors our connection to Puerto Rico.
About Project
About Project
About Project
Location
Location
Location
Isabela, Puerto Rico
Date
Date
Date
2014 (Ongoing)
Medium
Medium
Medium
Photography
full project summary
full project summary
full project summary
My grandfather built a life deep in the bush, one of the first to settle in the area after returning from war, he was a man who knew how to read the land. He wasn’t a farmer by title, but he was a jíbaro through and through. He grew coffee, gandules, mangoes, and pineapple in the backyard to feed his family. When the season allowed, he’d cut sugarcane as a field hand, or take odd jobs to make ends meet.
According to research, Puerto Rico imports 85% of it’s food, even though the land is quite fertile, a combination of limited agricultural investment, loss of local farms, and trade policies that favor imports over local production has nearly stripped the archipelago of it’s once boasting exports. Many families on the island have gardens, yet the research rarely counts what grows quietly in backyards, patios, or mountain plots passed down through generations. These hidden harvests—plantains, yuca, gandules—don’t show up in the data, yet they feed families, preserve culture, and root people to the land. Our food story is bigger than the numbers, it lives in our hands, our memories, and our oral histories.
full project summary
My grandfather built a life deep in the bush, one of the first to settle in the area after returning from war, he was a man who knew how to read the land. He wasn’t a farmer by title, but he was a jíbaro through and through. He grew coffee, gandules, mangoes, and pineapple in the backyard to feed his family. When the season allowed, he’d cut sugarcane as a field hand, or take odd jobs to make ends meet.
According to research, Puerto Rico imports 85% of it’s food, even though the land is quite fertile, a combination of limited agricultural investment, loss of local farms, and trade policies that favor imports over local production has nearly stripped the archipelago of it’s once boasting exports. Many families on the island have gardens, yet the research rarely counts what grows quietly in backyards, patios, or mountain plots passed down through generations. These hidden harvests—plantains, yuca, gandules—don’t show up in the data, yet they feed families, preserve culture, and root people to the land. Our food story is bigger than the numbers, it lives in our hands, our memories, and our oral histories.
