Xavier Tavera

I am not sure if I choose the United States, in the mid 90s I was on my 3rd year of law school in Mexico city and a company from Texas asked me to do some industrial photography for 2 months. So I dropped my studies and moved to Houston for two months I did my work and they really like how I work and they invited me to Minnesota to continue working for them and they offer to pay my school and my to arrange my paper my immigrations paper. A year after that they went bankruptcy so I got stranded here with trying to attempting my studies and with a huge steps in school. So it's one of those thing that life throw you in different places. I think chooses, I didn’t have it in my mind to immigrate to the united states, it really happened. And now that I was here, at the end of 98 I have to dropped my school and continue with the hope of continuing my education, because I could not pay for the school.

Well, I mean I always been first a photographer and then a lawyer, a teacher, a professor. That comes, that is important that come secondary to photography and so I was known in Mexico City as a photographer than a lawyer, or attempting to be a lawyer. So that’s why they picked me.

Yes, absolutely, you need a you need a you need it’s a it’s a process to get a visa. When I was doing it, you have to go make a line, you will take a whole day make a line from 5 in the morning 5am and you will go into this warehouses with people sitting in a row and eventually you will get your chance to speak in front of the officer and you will tell them your case like who I am and this is all the documentation that I have to proof that I am who I am and the I need to travel to the United States because of to this employment or whatever and right there on the spot pretty much they will decided you will have it or not. And you will have to wait more time to see if you were accepted. It was a whole day. It was exhausting it was hot it was bad. Now Thing has changed and you make it by appointment and you arrived at a certain time they will tell you the same process you have to tell them who you are and what are your intention in the united states.

Well, I mean I do not remember the questions. For sure it was what school, what school do you wanna attend. Why. I do remember an officer, cause I do went several times and they give me visa for 6 months and then the next one they will give me a visa for 1 year so it was never something that, then they give me one for 10 years. But I remember the officer asking me what kind of camera do I own. Just so he knew that I was a photographer right? They will ask me for my business card as a photographer. So I have to provide that in order to prove that I am a photographer.

How long I had been working? I think since 1996. Cause I came here for that, I didn’t came here initially for, for, to study. I have not stop since then and and the I am currently a professor at Carleton College.

Absolutely, Absolutely, Absolutely, more than pride. I mean I I I I am sometimes feel very good about my work but most of it I do it in a way that is, I always think about responsibility when doing my work when showing my work. I don’t just do anything and then show it. Cause it has happened in the past it has been little rough for me for not to have that responsibility but I try always to have responsibility on what I am doing, who I am accessing what am I revealing on the people who I am photographing and filming in order to protect them in order to be truthful to who they are and in order to tell somehow an accurate story of either advance people’s places.

I go to two extreme, I make what it can be the label of documentary photography. But I also make highly constructed images that has nothing to do with accuracy. Has to do more with fantasy and I imagination and than accuracy. With documentary I try to be as accurate as possible.

It depends on what I am making. I really enjoy making both. I really really enjoy being behind the camera, being at places that I am not supposed to be and places sometimes I am not welcome. In the other hand I really enjoy fabricating sets and making these images that sometimes political sometimes raise an identity what will tell the story without them being completely.

So I started very young to taking pictures. I was taking it very seriously when I was 13. And back then there was not formal education in Mexico. There were some private place you could go on so that they could teach you how to photograph and there was only in all Mexico it was only one university that was teaching photography. Since I couldn’t do that I decided to do it on my own. Learn, photographing a lot, learn by my mistake and it took a while. Learning with books learning with friends and when I migrated to the United States I want to formalize that education. And I arrived at MCAD and I have wonderful wonderful teachers there including Katherine Turczan. We were not only making images but questioning them and I think that something I was missing and not just the technical aspect of it but knowing really why are we making pictures why are we pointing the camera at certain people and places and events. She was really instrumental and guiding me through a process in her own particular way. So I mean I could say that I learned on my own and this is always a collective I, it is always a collective learning. I mean I learned also the only two people that I assisted commercial photography they taught me enormous amount as well. There is people along the road that have taught me directly how to, what to think about imag making and photography and also the people that I photographed. They teach me, every time I haven’t stop learning, they teach me every time about, not only about themselves and their own image, cause that’s the one that I am trying to conceive and with their gaze with their present with their conversation they teach me enormous amount. Hopefully I never finish to, the learning never end.

Do you hang out with your subjects?

Yes, for the most part yes, it is different in every case, because some of the people I encounter in interaction is only for 5-10 minutes but the other people it has been a friend of mine I photograph him throughout 8 years unfortunately about 5-6 years ago. If he hasn’t pass away and he hasn’t left this country I would have still keep on photographing him. Before the the photography it has been differentiate like now I have 3 - 4 people that are very close to me that I asked them all the time to take pictures and it is very interesting that we have record of our encounter that have turn into photography throughout the year. There was one specific one that I have also photograph, I dont know, I think 10 - 12 years. Before making images, he was very good friend of mine, we hang out, we keep in contact all the time, we collaborate, we do a lot of things. I mean every now and then we will take a picture. So there are actually many people like that throughout the year I photograph. (25:08-10 missing/dont understand) But that is a very good relationship getting to know them different stage of their life and photograph that aspect of.

How do you adapt your life in the U.S.? Thats a complicated question. That is a very complicated question because even though I been in Minnesota for 25 years. I lived half of my life outside my native country I still don’t think that I am minnesotan, so that’s part of the adaptation, I don't think that I want to integrate. I don't think that I want to become part of something that I still don’t understand. I do respect a lot and I like the place where I live. There are wonderful people here, there are enormously wonderful people here. But because of the way they look, because of the way I speak. I am always the foreign guy. I am not like just the person like yeah, where do you come from, where you are from, right? I probably never in my life said that I am Minnesotan. Because, also because I haven’t felt that welcoming gesture from this place. Again I feel very comfortable here I have fun memories of this 25 years here but when you said integration, it is tricky, it is super tricky, I also want to keep my own identity my own way of living. I speak Spanish at home, I eat Mexican food I have a number of people from Latin America and I think when you also agree that they are treating us like visitor not as an integrated element in here. That bring a series of problems and more questions, right? What is it means that specific things integration. Since I got here they been that saying that America is a melting pot and some of us don't want to be melted. I want to be who I am. I don’t want to be diluted and fused into something that is subtract maybe I don't believe. I want to keep my integrity, I want to keep my individuality. And I don't have any impulse to be integrated. My wife is here my kids are here my friends are here but the are still that foreign feeling that is a little bit of unsettling.

Is Minnesota your home?

It is part of my home, yes, but not entirely my home. It is part of my home because when I am going back to Mexico, when I go back to Mexica City to my mom's house to my mom’s apartment, I consider that’s my home as well, I consider Mexico my home. I consider south side the south side of Minneapolis my home, I consider my house my home. But that leads me to believe me that home is where I am. Home is where I find the people that I love. Being friends family right? Whatever. So for me it’s variable concepts that of home when I embrace that somebody I love that is home. It might not be a physical or geographical place, it is more of a feeling the displacement in this place, in the US and MN. We have to cope of the different types of definition of home. Aki 1. I like both U.S.A & Japan as home.