Escaramuza, the Poetics of Home

Escaramuza, The Poetics of Home considers the Mexican tradition of escaramuza, all-female precision horse riding teams who execute exacting maneuvers while riding sidesaddle at high speed and wearing traditional Mexican attire. It is a collaboration between myself and two poets, Ire'ne Lara Silva, 2023 texas State poet Laureate and Angelina Sáenz, award winning educator and poet and a UCLA writing project fellow, who wrote a poetry collection to accompany my portraits. I spent 2023 traveling around the US photographing and interviewing escaramuzas and learning about their way of life. Our work considers how the escaramuza tradition persists in the present-day United States, what it means for the identity of its Mexican and Mexican-American female practitioners, and how it fosters a profound sense of belonging. It explores the roles of family, immigration, and gender dynamics within escaramuza and Charrería culture in the US, drawing historical parallels to the soldaderas who fought in the Mexican Revolution and are the inspiration for the creation of the escaramuza tradition.