Celebrating Resilience
Written and photographed by Annalise Reinhardt
I am new to Gwangju. Before moving here in December 2017, I lived on the West Coast of the United States for eight years, and for seven of them, I called Portland, Oregon, my home. Before settling into my community in the Pacific Northwest, New York was my home. Born and raised in New York State about an hour north of the “Big Apple,” I spent my early adulthood in Brooklyn. Gradually, I wished to live in a place closer to nature with a less kinetic pace. And so, two friends and I drove across the country to move to Oregon, a state we only imagined could be what we sought.
While driving in and out of state border lines, geographies, and climates, the real and envisioned stories of the land and its people moved across my mind like the highway lines guiding us. I saw people, mostly men in their 20s and 30s, who had arrived in my hometown of Brewster, New York, from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. They came seeking work and would wait every morning on the sidewalk for someone to pick them up and give them a manual labor job.
At 13 years old, I had wondered about their stories, families, and struggles. At the time, I knew very little about the shared experience or cultural identity of the people who waited for work. I did, however, know that many – perhaps even most of them – did not have their families and loved ones with them. I held much respect for the abundant sacrifice they had made by coming to an unfamiliar place so far away from home to seek opportunities greater than those they could access in their home countries. I knew then that there must have been a crucial need in order for them to endure all that they had been through to make it to that point.
Fast forward to May 1, 2016, the day these photographs were taken. It was International Workers’ Day – also known as May Day or Labor Day. In the United States, Labor Day is observed on the first Monday in September; however, May 1 is a public holiday celebrated in many countries. As a day of solidarity and recognition for workers and labor unions, it honors the working classes and celebrates their contributions. Since 2000, labor unions have merged with immigrant rights movements in the United States, and now May Day has become synonymous with much more, like appreciation and support for all that immigrant communities contribute and the acknowledgement of their human rights.
When taking these photos, I was at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem to support undocumented workers and to stand in solidarity with immigrant communities. These photos are relevant today, as immigrants and migrants around the world are among the most marginalized people. Targeted and vulnerable, both globally and in my home country, I am regularly saddened and angered by updates of their present plight despite being halfway across the world.
On March 5, 2018, the Trump Administration is set to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Launched in 2012 by the Obama Administration and described by former President Obama as “a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people,” the program currently protects roughly 800,000 undocumented people living in the United States. The DACA program temporarily protects participants, also known as “Dreamers” (referring to the continually reintroduced but never-passed DREAM Act), their average age being 24,[1] from deportation and grants them Social Security numbers in addition to two-year work permits offering access to work opportunities, financial aid for college, and a path to citizenship. According to the research of Roberto G. Gonzales, a professor of education and author of Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America, “Under DACA, beneficiaries saw increased educational attainment, higher social mobility, and better mental health.”[2]
As mass deportations occur every day in the United States and Congress continues to maintain a stasis of conflict and irresolution, I think of all the “Dreamers” and immigrants whose resilience, heart, and courage define a humanity I deeply respect.
[1]Pew Research Center, 2017.
[2]Gonzales, February 16, 2018, www.vox.com.
The Author
Annalise Reinhardt (b. 1985, New York) is a photographer, art educator, and ESL teacher living in Gwangju, South Korea. Annalise seeks to engage with experiences of creative expression, vulnerability, and transcendence, and creates collaboratively with others through the mediums of photography and video. Annalise completed the Full-Time Certificate in Documentary Studies program at the International Center of Photography in 2008 and graduated with a BFA in arts practices from Portland State University in 2014. Presently, Annalise is eager to find others in Gwangju who would like to collaborate on projects in and around portraiture, performance, and community activism.