Pasajuego is the name given to the court in which the ancient indigenous game of Pelota Mixteca it is played. This game originated in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca is played in teams of five players. They strike the one-kilogram rubber ball with a handcrafted glove made of leather and nails, which weights five kilograms.
This photo series is a parallel product of the documentary film project Pasajuego, a visual ethnography about the migration of Oaxacan people to urban centres of Mexico and the US. In this story the game of Pelota Mixteca, acts as a window to look through to the lives of the Oaxacan people at their migration destinations. The practice of Pelota Mixteca in different contexts reflects the lives of those who play the game, and shows how culture travels with them when they migrate. At the present time there are approximately two million people from Oaxaca living in the United States.
Oaxacan people are acknowledged as hard workers, tireless landscapers, cooks and particularly skilled field workers. However, after working the whole week they look forward to the game as it takes them back to their communities of origin; the paisanos gather with their families around the field telling old stories and catching up on news from their hometowns. Pasajuego shows how the immigrant population builds bridges between regions. For twenty years, Oaxacan migrants have been organizing International Pelota Mixteca Tournaments in Fresno, California.
What began as an ethnographic research became a quest to capture moments, intentions, gestures, atmospheres and the need to portray the ballgame as a playful expression of strength, a dance. This photo series aims to capture the community contexts in which the game is carried out, and the ability of Oaxacan people to recreate their communities of origin on the other side of the border. In this journey through different regions of Oaxaca, Mexico and the US, the locations are condensed into one to describe Pasajuego as an embassy with diverse cultural expressions, geographically dispersed but unified by practice, cooperation and exchange between Oaxacan communities.
