In direct contrast to many other lower income areas, I sensed little appetite to criticize the government, or the upper class. The lower-income citizens I talked to were resigned, perhaps too busy, perhaps too removed, to contemplate income inequality. Or perhaps it was something else entirely. Maybe they were wary of opening up to a foreigner, especially one with an American accent. Perhaps they were too scared to criticize, even fearful. Whether it was my presence or the general feeling of the community, I’ll never know. Maybe Mexicans in lower-income areas have simply adapted to the trauma of the drug violence, the corruption, the grinding banality of poverty, and learned to suppress their true emotions. Maybe the unwillingness to engage with a temporary visitor, a non-Spanish speaker, a white American, was purely a tactical question of time and understanding. I left Neza feeling like I knew less about the people, the community, than I did in almost any other city. No one offered me their email address, or their phone number. No one invited me back the next time I visited.

A special thanks goes out to the support structure I had in Mexico City, a very intimidating place to travel, speak, and drive. I could not have done this project without the support of the Thomson Reuters Foundation (specifically Anna Yukhananov), my driver Octavio, and of course my incredibly generous friends Alejandra and Daniela Esponda. A special thanks goes to Oscar Ruiz, a helicopter pilot who also happens to be a photographer specializing in photos of inequality. He created an incredible series that you can find here: (http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/08/oscar-ruizs-aerial-photos-of-mexicos.html) which I used in part as reference for my own photos (see if you can spot the similarities!). He is also a very generous guy and spent part of his valuable time talking to me one day about his work.