There is palpable heartbreak in the photos of Saul Martinez. On one level, it is evoked by the subject itself: The bodies of Guatemalan children have been put into mass graves after being removed from burial niches because their parents could not — or forgot — to pay the upkeep fee. But just as sad is the underlying reason: Guatemala’s mind-numbingly high levels of violence have created an unceasing demand for new burial spaces.
Mr. Martinez, who was born in Guatemala and raised on Long Island, still struggles to understand both phenomena.
“If you go to the cemetery, in one day you will see six to 10 burials and half of them have to do with the violence in this country,” he said. “Outside, people are dying, and inside the cemetery, nobody says anything as the bodies are pulled out to make more room, and it is seen as something normal.”
He returned to Guatemala in 2009, after he had decided to pursue photography in earnest. His goal was to understand the country he had left when his parents divorced and his mother moved to New York when he was 6. Raised in Glen Cove — “where everything is supposedly perfect” — he didn’t identify with suburbia. Growing up, he had returned to Guatemala only a few times. But a trip in 2004 — around the time mudslides killed some 30 people in Sololá — resulted in his staying to take pictures with a point-and-shoot camera.
“I didn’t feel uncomfortable getting close to people,” he said. “I felt this was something I could do.”
Mr. Martinez returned to the United States and studied photography, then went right back to Guatemala, where he landed a job with Prensa Libre, one of the country’s leading newspapers. Four years later, he was hired by the Spanish news agency EFE. A few months ago, he quit to devote himself to freelancing and personal projects.
The impulse to reconnect and understand his family’s personal journey led him to confront the country’s alarming violence and impunity. Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, which ended with peace accords in 1996, still resonates in ways big and small. Hamlets were decimated by soldiers and paramilitary groups hellbent on wiping out a guerrilla movement. In peace — or what passes for it — officers who retired or were pushed out have been linked to organized crime, gang members terrorize communities and justice is rarely meted out in a courtroom.
Whatever its origins, the results are evident in the Cementerio General — the General Cemetery — with its unending daily funeral processions. Mr. Martinez, 34, started going there in search of a story and was stunned when he heard about the burial spots that were being cleared out for new corpses. He said that if survivors went 14 years without paying the upkeep fee, about $24 for four years, they were notified. If no answer was forthcoming, the grave was emptied. A local news report estimated that the process, which began in 2014 and will continue for up to another year, will free up 3,000 spaces that once were used to bury children and adults.
“To a poor family, $24 is a lot,” he said. “Still, I found it remarkable that a family member can forget about a child and not even visit his grave.”
The mass grave that awaits them is but one reminder of that poverty. So, too, is its location, close to the fetid municipal garbage dump.
“Even in death, you are placed next to garbage,” Mr. Martinez said. “That’s why you see in some pictures there are vultures everywhere, because it’s next to the dump.”
That contrasted with the rituals he witnessed every Nov. 1, when people honor their deceased relatives on All Saints Day.
“Death is celebrated here on that one day,” Mr. Martinez said. “People go to the cemetery, they eat, they play music. It’s all very colorful; even among the tombs there is color.”
He admits the contrasts can be wearying. But while every year he vows to return to the United States, he remains (although he will travel to New York in October for the Eddie Adams Workshop, to which he has been accepted). For now, he hopes to travel to El Salvador, perhaps Honduras, too, to document the struggles those countries have had with violence, gangs and corruption. By taking a regional look, he can also understand why so many people uproot themselves for a new start up north.
“Being here has served a purpose in my life, to reconnect with my language, my family and my culture,” he said. “Now I understand why my mom left to chase the American dream, because it is a very unstable country. It’s a small place, and not many people know about it in the United States, but once you are here, you can understand.”
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