Douglas Witmer
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Thursday, February 02, 2006
concordia cemetary, el paso
The vast Concordia Cemetary in El Paso, Texas is situated in the flat land of the desert at the foot of the mountains, and is also bordered by an incredibly complex highway interchange for US Route 10, and Texas Route 54. Down among the graves, the sound is only as quiet as the highway is empty. All the headstones face due east. I took many photos there in October of 2003, during our first visit to El Paso to adopt our daughter, and returned this past Sunday morning to explore more parts of the cemetary.
In Concordia, societal structures of ethnicity, class, and wealth are blatantly apparent. There are typical headstones, but there are also many very inexpensive or homemade markers, mostly memorializing Latinos. These are the ones I love, particularly the stark flat sheet metal markers. They are generally clustered together. The majority are quite damaged, have lost their paint and are slowly being buried in the desert sand along with the person whose grave they mark. Still, I find their stark shapes and the shadows they cast in the relentless and clear light of the desert sky incredibly beautiful.
NEW on DGLS...Click here for a photo gallery of 25 images from the Concordia Cemetary.
2.2.06 