I shot this photo about two weeks before Carmen was taken away from her mother Erica (seen earlier in this series). While I have absolutely no doubt that Erica loved Carmen, I was definitely concerned about this little girl growing up in the ZN scene as Erica would be with her all hours of the night on the streets - this photo was probably shot around 1am. Erica had also started living with a guy who was not Carmen's father (who was in jail) and things went downhill from there. Erica says she misses Carmen terribly but she has not taken any steps to get her back in to her custody.
Many of the meseros and meseras at the local bars know me and will flag me down to take a photo of them...
Memo was shining shoes for a while but lost all his shoeshine stuff so he started selling chiclets and snacks in the bars and on the street.
