Boise student captures his love of his culture on film

BOISE – Salsa dancers Aolani McGavis and Mansi Loya are entwined sensuously, their arms around each other’s necks.

They stare intently into each other’s eyes. It is impossible to miss the passion each has for the dance.

“I am hooked,” McGavis said. “I cannot get enough of it.”

It was precisely that passion, that electric connection, that Jesus Gonzalez Jr. sought when he pointed his camera at McGavis and Loya.

Gonzalez, a Boise State University student majoring in photography and Spanish, wanted more than pictures of people dancing.

He wanted to say that Hispanics are more than the sum of the stereotypes many people hold.

Hispanics work. They go to school. They love. And those like McGavis and Loya love to dance.

Gonzalez’s pictures chronicling the lives of Hispanic BSU students, titled “Latinos on Campus,” are on display at the BSU Cultural Center.

Gonzalez wasn’t interested in their lives on campus, in their studying and writing term papers.

He photographed flamenco dancers at midnight as they practiced in their basement at the end of a long day. And Salsa dancers — McGavis and Loya, who come to the Boise Cafe at 10th and Bannock streets most weekend nights just to dance.

“It’s like a window into who we are,” Gonzalez said. “I wanted to showcase what they are doing and what they are really good at.”

For Gonzalez, 32, these pictures represent his journey to understanding his culture as much as it documents the lives of the people he sees through his lens.

Gonzalez’s earliest memories are of living in a labor camp in Wilder and running from the men’s communal shower toward his house, dripping wet and cold, a towel wrapped around him.

And spending long days in the fields, digging and topping onions.

In that mostly white community, however, Gonzalez was unsure who he was.

He learned that many people thought Mexicans were lazy. That they didn’t care about education. And that the men had mustaches.

“What I learned dominated a lot of my thinking,” he said.

But as he grew up, his father urged him to go to college. Gonzalez attended the University of Idaho several years ago, although he didn’t complete his studies.

But he did begin to view his own people in a different light. He joined Hispanic cultural organizations that showed him the richness of his heritage.

“I didn’t understand,” he said.

And when he picked up a camera in a photo class a couple of years ago at BSU, he decided he wanted to document the culture he had come to understand.

Larry McNeil, BSU associate professor of photography, says Gonzalez’s art is a road map of the journey his student has taken.

“The work engages the viewer and asks questions about not only who he is, but how he fits into the mainstream culture,” McNeil said. “It is building bridges between cultures, and this is always a nice thing to have, especially in Boise where there are not that many people of color.”

The people Gonzalez photographed for the exhibit, like Loya and McGavis, carve out time to celebrate their heritage in a life crammed with routine.

They hold jobs. McGavis is a single mom. But nothing keeps them from the rhythms that enticed them into salsa dancing less than a year ago.

They even dance to raise money so they can go to seminars and learn more about salsa dancing.

“Salsa is a way to express my happiness, my culture,” Loya said.

And when Gonzalez looks at them, he sees the same thing. “They have this energy and glow,” he said. “They are really good role models.

“I feel like that’s what we need in our community.”