The Rock of Ercé is a photographic essay exploring the history, collective, familial and personal, of the waves of successive immigrations that have taken place between the village of Ercé in the department of Ariège in the French Pyrenees, and New York City, in the United States, between the end of the 19th century and today. This project brings distant times and places closer to highlight how the memory of one remains in the imagination of the other.
Ercé is the historic capital of the bear trainers of the Pyrenees. These men used to capture bear cubs in the mountains that they trained to earn their living by exhibiting them in the streets. Dozens of them emigrated to New York with their animals, hoping to make a fortune with their shows. In the valley they were called the “Americans”.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the echoes of the success of these “Americans” brought about a new wave of emigration, during which many people from Ercé went to New York to work in the French restaurants whose numbers were increasing.
Among them was my great-great-grandmother. She left the valley, her family and her children to work in New York and so pay back the money for the farm they had just bought. Several years later, she returned to Ercé and to the farm which is still in our family today.
In the heart of Manhattan, a rock bears witness to the passage of the people from Ercé, who used to meet there every Sunday, to swap news from home and to help one another. The used to call it the Rock of Ercé.
Thomas Bouquin
