El Sombrero de Miguel Lopez, 2018, Photograph

Miguel Lopez, my grandfather, was from Jalisco, Mexico. He came to the USA when visitors paid 50 cents to cross the border. I didn’t know he was part of the Bracero Program until years later. As far as I can remember, Miguel Lopez always wore a sombrero for riding horses or doing farm work. Along with his horses and cattle, the sombrero was an extension of who he was and the land he cared for. Twenty years after he passed, I asked for a sombrero from his house, and we met the two young ladies who delivered the sombrero in Zacatecas.