The laundress' boy was called Chino, of so I thought.

I learned later that Chino is a name for a specific racial mixture (not including Chinese) in Mexico's very fine-grained system of categorizing racial mixtures, a system centuries old, elaborated in many series of paintings one sees reproduced still all through the country. (One set of originals is in the museum in Chapultapec Castle in D.F.) Mexico was a very inter-racial nation long before The United States or European nations were. Not that this made class distinctions any softer or less limiting.

"Casta divisions were the most important component in the Colonial language of power, and the Inquisition reflected the need to distinguish in order to punish accordingly. The notorious casta paintings of 18th century Mexico speak volumes about an obsession with racial mixture and the fear of the ensuing social upheaval," wrote Baltasar Fra Molinero of Bates College.

As I recall, a Chino includes African heritage. Chino may have been so nicknamed because of his curly hair and dark skin.

Fred Chez, with Marco Antonio and Isidorio, one of the hitchhikers, waiting for Omar to shoot the ball. Mrs. Peña allowed the boys in but disapproved of them. Isidorio was dark-skinned, Omar lighter. The little boy was the son of the laundry woman who worked for the Peñas.

Marco Antonia Peña

Friends in Guadalajara seeking the family learned from people living on that street that Mrs. Peña and Maria had both passed away. The effort to find Marco Antonio were stymied by my failure to note his full name. Mexicans like Spaniards have both a maternal and a paternal last name, and I had not made note of the other name.

My room was through this doorway to a separate structure off to the left. My friends could come and visit me and play basketball in the courtyard with Marco Antionio Peña, the Señora's son, a medical student. When I was able to move around, he took me to visit his medical school, part of the University of Guadalajara.

The Señora and Maria seated in their "sala abierta."

I have no recollection of their interior rooms. I do not believe I ever sat with them inside, or had a meal at their table. My food was brought to me in a little room in the back of the house.

Señora Peña and her daughter Maria.

The house of the Peña family, where I was taken that evening. I recall the address as 34 Guadalupe Victoria. I lived here for a week. The generosity shown me by this family was remarkable, and is still characteristic of Mexican people, as Earl Shorris points out in his book of 2004, The Life and Times of Mexico.

This address is about ten blocks from Instituto Cabañas. where I exhibited the 1953 photographs and told this story to the press in 2008. All attempts on my behalf to find surviving members of the family failed. The house is no longer there.

Back to Guadalajara in 1953: Fireworks in front of the cathedral for the Fiesta of the Virgin of Zapopan. Just a few blocks from here, my exhibit of this and other of the photographs was to take place in 2008, in the month of May.

Right after I took this picture, I fell ill. Dysentary, probably from eating the oysters back outside of Mazatlan. Since we were camping on the roadside outside of the city in what was then open country to the North, my companions, Fred and the Mexican hitchhikers, left me there the next day at my insistence. I said "Go back into Guadalajara and enjoy the paseo on Sunday," since in those days young couples strolled around the square in front of and beside the cathedral to see one another and perhaps meet, in the style of 19th century Spain. I said "Come back tonight and I'll probably feel better."

So they left me on a cot, well off the highway at the edge of a cleared area left by road crews. I did not think I would be noticed by cars whizzing past. Next to the cot were a canteen of water and two rolls of toilet paper for my frequent rushes into the nearby bush.

As I lay there, I noticed one car slow down and a family inside studying me. It must have been an odd sight, but one that told its own story fairly clearly. A few hours later, the same car came back from its excursion and pulled into the clearing. A woman and her grown son and daughter were in the car. The woman got out to speak with me. I had enough high-school Spanish to explain my situation.

She said "You will not be better by tonight. You will not be better for a week. Have your friends bring you to our home in Guadalajara, and we will give you a room to sleep in and proper food to see that you recover and can resume your trip soon." She gave me her address, and drove away.