Caras de Mexico

"He left New York and set out to apply his skills to more thematic subject matter, hitchhiking through the West while photographing cowboys, Native American ranch hands and black rodeo riders, 'reconstructing an American myth,' part of the title of that collection.
"Following the rodeo south to Mexico, he heard from an acquaintance about some isolated villages on the coastal plain south of Acapulco where the inhabitants were black. He doubted the truth of this until he journeyed there and saw for himself. Drawn to the notion of an unexamined African diaspora, he proceeded to document the evidence his own way, living among his subjects for months at a time and posing them for photographs intended to magnify their humanity and beauty."

Sean Mitchell in the Los Angeles Times interviews Tony Gleaton as the photographer's exhibit of pictures of Mexicans of African descent opens at Loyola Marymount University.