Zapotec Mariachi in Teotitlán del Valle, Mexico

There’s nothing like traveling to a remote village in another country to reconnect with the beauty of humanity.

While on a photography project, José was to be my fixer (gate keeper) in Mexico. We met in downtown Oaxaca at the beautiful Álvarez Bravo Photographic Center.

Together we took a series of buses for nearly an hour to arrive at Teotitlán del Valle. José told me that this was the town that his entire family was from. And to own property there, you had to be Zapotec.

I speak Spanish. But he told me that a lot of the people in the town prefer to speak in Zapotec.

When we first arrived, he showed me around the market. Then we walked up a wide stone staircase to arrive at the plaza for the town’s cathedral.

We saw a mariachi group packing up just after a performance. I had wanted to take portraits of the people in the town. So José walked up to them ahead of me, and asked them in Zapotec if I could make their photos.

In this period of a few seconds, I had a sensation of peering down on myself from above. I didn’t completely recognize the situation that I was in. When I was 19 and 20, I lived in and traveled throughout Mexico for over a year. I was comfortable navigating by myself. And I enjoyed talking to the people that I met. I…