At the age of 24, Rex Ziak left his hometown with the intention of visiting Pre-Columbian ruins. Although he was already an accomplished photographer, he decided not to bring a camera with him: "I wanted to walk and think about color, images, and light. I thought I would grow more without a camera; I would have to look harder."
      His trip to Mexico became a six-year odyssey that took him to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and all of South America except Venezuela, Chile, and Uruguay. During his travels, Rex became fascinated by the indigenous peoples still living traditional lives in isolated villages, but he also became increasingly concerned by the rate at which these indigenous cultures were being corrupted and destroyed. Although he had no training as an anthropologist, he decided to try to document life in one traditional village.
      Still without a camera, Rex found a remote agrarian village in the Guerrero province of Mexico, where he arrived alone and presented himself as destitute and looking for work. He stayed for 28 months — "three harvests and two plantings of corn and beans" — and after he had worked side by side with the villagers and gained their trust, he finally had a camera sent to him.

      Using his fluent Spanish, Rex observed, listened, asked questions, kept copious notes, and took pictures. He recorded details such as agricultural practices, division of labor, the economics of poverty, courtship and marriage, child rearing, superstitions, the interpretation of dreams, and festivities. He recorded their traditional music and photographed every aspect of their lives.
      Throughout his sojourn, Rex shared in the life of the village: "I worked in the fields, prayed for rain, watched for elves and witches coming from the woods, tried not to wake up the corn at night. I learned how to yoke oxen. The nitty-gritty, old, old Indian culture."
      After returning to his hometown in Washington state, Rex began giving slide shows and lectures on his experiences in Mexico, which were enthusiastically received. He continues to maintain his interest in traditional Mexican culture and enjoys lecturing to American audiences who are unfamiliar with this rich and complex heritage, which is shared by so many of their Mexican-American co-workers and employees. [See the "Speaker" page.]
      [Rex’s quotes on this page were originally published in The Chinook Observer, September 21, 1993.]