Overall, the purpose of my project was to show a how the quality of life for immigrants has changed over time. My goal was to take pictures from different time periods and blend them together to show the different experience and the unjust treatment of immigrants under the
current political administration.
[The first image of this] collage is intended to show the hardships current migrants experience while waiting to be let into the country alongside how immigration used to look. Not yet added to this photo but present in my final collage is an overlay of a whiteboard at a music festival. The whiteboard read “My American Dream Is…” and festival attendants were asked to write something on the board. Most responses were related to sex or drugs, while it can be assumed that the sick refugee lying at the bottom of the frame would ask for something much different.
Some of my other collages have differing purposes. [Image 6 of] this collage for instance is meant to show how as a country, our strong values of unity and altruism (along with an effective system of checks and balances in our government) can be enough to fight individuals promoting hate and exclusion towards specific groups of people. The intent of this collage is to show Donald Trump, a main proprietor of such ideals, as an outcast at a peaceful protest. Another of my collages, the one with the burning books, was inspired by the assault on the rights of immigrants recently. The idea behind this collage was to show books burning that can be considered important parts of American ideals of the past that have grown the country to what it is today. JFK’s “A Nation of Immigrants” is an effective representation of this as it preaches the importance of acceptance and unity. Showing this book burning with the image of the KKK members in the background shows that there are two prominent yet opposing pasts that the United States can build upon, Hate or acceptance. This intends to show how the country has started to follow the path of hate, but it is not too late to pull the book from the fire.
Overall, the purpose of my photo project is to not show the change in the meaning of the word Immigrant, but to show how the United states has changed recently in the way immigrants are treated. Although at times it may seem like an attack on the current political administration, that is not what this project is about. I hope this project is clear with its intentions: even under the current administration, The United States of America is a nation of immigrants that will continue to show love an acceptance, even if our leader is working to fight it.
