James Rodríguez (1972, US-Mexico) is a Guatemala-based documentary photographer, photojournalist, filmmaker, and drone pilot. Raised in Mexico City, Rodríguez moved to the Los Angeles area as a teenager. He graduated from UCLA in 1996 with a B.A. degree in Cultural Geography. Fluent in Spanish & English, proficient in Portuguese & Japanese, James has worked and traveled to over 60 countries in all continents and lived in Japan, Kenya, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States. Guatemala’s internal war ravaged the Central American nation from 1960 to 1996. The book, Tierra de árboles/Land of Trees (2024) culminates an 18-year project and documents the last two decades of the aftermath of the brutal war, attempting to understand its present-day ills. This in-person lecture is open to the entire CSUN community.