Route 66: into the badlands

The Route 66 Casino just off the Interstate I-40 freeway, near Albuquerque, New Mexico Photograph: David Levene

The old historic Route 66 runs alongside the Interstate I-40 freeway, near Albuquerque, New Mexico Photograph: David Levene

The newest and glitziest buildings on the reservations are mostly the casinos built to bring in tourist dollars, although in the middle of the afternoon in the Sky City casino in Acoma, New Mexico, it’s mostly Native Americans and truckers playing the slot machines. Photograph: David Levene

Drive a few miles in any direction from the interstate highway near Second Mesa 0n the Hopi Indian reservation in Arizona and the tarmac increasingly gives way to washboard roads and towns that don’t feature on tourist maps Photograph: David Levene

The highway near Second Mesa on the Hopi Indian reservation in Arizona Photograph: David Levene

The reservations are a fraction of the land once overseen by the Navajo and smaller tribes but still stretch through thousands of square miles of northern Arizona and New Mexico. Here the worst economic crisis in seven decades is deepening a crisis of identity Photograph: David Levene

A few yards off the main road to Tohatchi, a desolate Navajo town in northern New Mexico of little more than a thousand people living in dilapidated houses and trailers. A third of the population lives below the poverty line. Photograph: David Levene

Dollar Trading and Pawn has something for everyone on the move around Arizona’s badlands. Lassos are strung up under the veranda. Photograph: David Levene

Emma Yazzie’s job looks secure as the pawn business thrives, but her husband was laid off from his job as a carpenter in February. 'I live on the Navajo reservation and drive 60 miles to work. We live out in the open. We have to haul water to the house in the pickup. Now I’m the only one working, it’s kind of hard on us.' Photograph: David Levene

'People, mostly Native Americans, bring in all kinds of things to pawn. Stereos, tools, sewing machines, jewellery. People are leaving the reservation to look for work. Going to the cities. The young people.' Photograph: David Levene

Tourists pick up the local handmade trinkets, and Navajo jewellery that says they’ve been to Arizona, even if only for a few hours largely spent on the interstate highway. Photograph: David Levene

Part of a car for sale at the Dollar Pawn Shop, Winslow, Arizona Photograph: David Levene

Polished leather saddles with fine decorative carvings are racked up at the door of the Dollar Pawn Shop for about $500 apiece. They are popular with cowboys and those still widely referred to in ­Arizona as 'the Indians'. Photograph: David Levene

An old Grand Marquis car out on the lot at the Dollar Pawn shop, Winslow, Arizona Photograph: David Levene

The Dollar Pawn Shop, Winslow, Arizona. 'Business is booming, excellent,' said Ben Hatch, Dollar’s owner. 'It’s 90% Native Americans. They need a few more dollars to get by. People don’t have the money they used to have.' Photograph: David Levene

Watering the roadside on Interstate I-40, New Mexico Photograph: David Levene

The disused Rio Puerco bridge (1933) on historic Route 66 near Albuquerque, New Mexico Photograph: David Levene

A train runs alongside Interstate I-40 near the New Mexico/Arizona border Photograph: David Levene