A numbered series of five black and white photographs of the Southern California-Mexico Border Region. Image 1: inscribed metal tag attached to barbed wire fence at US-Mexico Border. Inscription begins, "As I am a Christian...". Image 2: pillow left behind at popular illegal immigrant desert camp. Image 3: inscribed metal tag attached to barbed wire fence at US-Mexico Border. Inscription begins, "The next thing I bring to the border...". Image 4: water left for illegal immigrants crossing the desert. Image 5: view from a gap in the fence down the US-Mexico border at sunset.
I am on the fence. Figuratively, to be sure; but often literally as well.
It's to the US-Mexico Border Fence that I repeatedly find myself drawn to understand the current immigration debate. It is my nature to form opinions based on data, not to accept data based upon whether or not they coincide with my opinions. However, with an undocumented population, the precious data upon which I seek to form my opinions are not easily forthcoming.
But The Fence; The Fence I can experience first-hand. And the events that occur in its shadow leave evidence that can be photographed and shared. Whether it be the Minutemen who patrol its perimeter, or the Border Angels who leave blankets in the winter, or the scattered belongings of an individual apprehended by Border Patrol, there are truths to be found in all that is left behind.
My current quest is to resolve compassion for a people who suffer so greatly that they risk death in an unfamiliar desert with knowledge that our country holds a finite amount of resources, both financial and natural, in which we all must share.
My goal is to complete a substantial portfolio that captures both artifacts and individuals to illustrate all perspectives of this complex issue. By researching captions for each image to provide non-partisan information regarding the true effects of illegal immigration on contemporary American society, it is my hope that this portfolio can promote constructive dialogues based on facts rather than emotionally-derived conjecture and half-truths.