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I was looking for globalization, for effects of the transnational on the local, for traces of economic policy in the lives of individuals. The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) had recently passed in the US Congress and was being debated in Nicaragua in the fall of 2005, when I spent three months there photographing and interviewing the people who would be affected, for better or worse, by the agreement. I focused on the twenty-something generation, who represent the median age group in Nicaragua.
First to the turbid capital city of Managua, where I spent time with young women who work in the maquila industry, the factories in the Free Trade Zone. Then into the interior, to the state of Matagalpa, where I lived with families on dairy farms, their livelihoods as long-established as they are precarious. Third to the blisteringly hot sugarcane fields of Chinandega. And lastly the Miskito Coast, where indigenous lobster divers become paralyzed by the weight of the Caribbean. Together these stories give an idea of those who will be affected by this trade policy between their region and the United States.
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Maquilas
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