With Great Appreciation to WILFREDO PEDRERO
by Brenna Cukier “Describe Freddie in one word.” This was the question I asked all of Freddie’s nearest and dearest, AKA: his co-workers at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park. Each time, the recipient of the question took a moment to reflect before carefully selecting a word. These were a few of their […]
Etta
By Laura Doggett Etta, pointing at a hole in a tree in the forest: “Look, the owl lives there. It might be a home. It looks like a home. It’s nice and deep and hollow. It’s very brown and earthy. We kind of share the same home because we live together on the same earth… but, […]
Super Freddie
By Brenna Cukier “Here, that’s Fu Manchu…you know him? And that’s Spock from the Starship Enterprise…just came out of my head. This one I didn’t get to finish…” Two tan and weathered hands flick through a stack of pen drawings on printing paper. “This is our co-worker…she doesn’t work with us any more. This is Wonder […]
Brownsville
By Nicholas Pilarski I bike twenty-four blocks from my apartment in Flatbush to the housing developments of Brownsville. While riding, I watch the sun slowly rise, back-lighting the monolithic buildings that lay to the east. As light passes through the nation’s largest network of affordable housing developments, shadows divide the streets into a complex crosshatch of […]
Newspaper Squad
By Amanda Berg My dad tells a story about the scars on his knees. He learned to play baseball on the asphalt lot behind his school. For years he played on that blacktop, with chalk marks for bases and a chain link fence as the boundary. A slide into home meant a bloody knee. When he […]
How Would the Media Portray You If…
By Sarah Stacke In late July I held a workshop for exalt alumni designed to facilitate conversations about how, since the invention of photography, communities of color have used photography as a tool of empowerment. exalt, the organization I’m collaborating with as a Lewis Hine Fellow, is an after-school program serving youth who have been […]
Sharing Crossroads
By Sarah Stacke I’m dedicated to developing intimate stories about intersections of culture, history, and geography that create marginalized communities. This has led to Love From Manenberg, a long-form documentary piece shot in a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa; a project about the Cherokee Reservation in Western North Carolina; and most recently, a series […]
The Bronx is Thawing
The clock skipped ahead an hour and the sun rose with a purpose last Sunday. After months of freezing temperatures and early sunsets there was finally a high forecasted above 32 degrees. It was 48. Warm enough to lift my spirits but not warm enough to melt the layers of ice and snow off Macombs […]
The Crossing
By Amanda Berg One of the most challenging parts of moving to a new place has been introducing myself. People ask, “Who are you? What do you do? Why are you here?” It doesn’t feel like enough to say, “I am a photographer from New Jersey.” Am I a Lewis Hine Fellow from Duke? Or […]
What’s in a Name?
By Sarah Stacke On November 24 a grand jury failed to indict police officer Darren Wilson, a White man, of any crimes associated with the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old Black man. Brown was unarmed when Wilson shot him six times on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. On December 3 a grand […]
Reflections on Documentary Making
By Andrea Patiño It’s hard to believe that ten months have passed already and that my time as a Hine Fellow has come to an end. As I reflect on the experience of working full-time producing documentary work, I can say that this has been a profoundly rewarding year, full of learning experiences, the discovery of […]
They grow up so fast
By Cameron Zohoori Parenthood is not something I think about much on a daily basis. I’m able to make day-to-day decisions without regard to children or other dependents. But for many of the youth at UTEC, parenting is a normal part of their lives. More of the young people I have spent time with than […]
Mobility is not a right
By Andrea Patiño As my time as a Hine fellow ends, I have been dealing with the ever-dreaded question of what’s next? My standard response goes something like, ‘my future is very uncertain and I have no idea where I will be in four months.’ When I explain that my US work permit ends in July […]
Forgotten Homes
By Cameron Zohoori Mao Kang is a streetworker at UTEC. On a day-to-day basis, his work consists of reaching out to young people across Lowell, responding to violent incidents, and “planting seeds of peace” in the city’s youth. But Mao’s specialty is homeless outreach. Having been homeless himself for many years in his youth, he […]
The Vow
By Cameron Zohoori Riqie Wainaina works in the Workforce Development Program at UTEC, spending most of his days in the mattress recycling crew. He travels to a warehouse in Lawrence, MA each day with the rest of the crew, under the supervision of two UTEC staff. There they dismantle and prepare discarded mattresses for recycling, […]
Jose
By Andrea Patiño Every now and then Jose talks to me about his grandmother. Sometimes he shows me photos of her or tells me about the times when she has made an appearance in his dreams. The other day for instance, he told me how the night before, his grandma had cut her long hair and […]
RAW Chiefs
By Andrea Patiño As the winter slowly advances, the days seem to be getting colder and colder. Every day however, the sun is setting a little bit later and there is one more minute of light each afternoon. In spite of the cold, the Boston skies continue to be some of the most stunning I’ve ever […]
The Greatest Profession
By Cameron Zohoori In my time at UTEC thus far, I have seen the remarkable and diverse youth who spend their days in this center, and have begun to explore their stories. But it is not only in the young people that UTEC serves that there are untold stories, and it is not only in […]
UTEC’s Grand Opening
By Cameron Zohoori I have been at the United Teen Equality Center for nearly a month and a half now, immersed in the day-to-day operations of an organization that empowers young people in Lowell, MA to transform their lives by “trading violence and poverty for social and economic success”. Working with and embracing the […]
“You’ll want my story”
By Andrea Patiño The first time I sat down with Awatif to talk about her experiences as an Iraqi refugee, she warned me: ‘I have a good story for you…you’ll want my story.’ Her remark made me uncomfortable and cautious. In some ways that’s the last thing I wanted. As I gather stories and start […]
A Different Way of Seeing
By Chris Fowler Spring. Brighter light and longer days are here. The rigorously contemplative winter is making way for an active and fruitful vernal season. I am very pleased to report that the documentary photography class that I taught at The Eliot School in collaboration with UFORGE Gallery was a great success. The four-week class […]
Repetition, Ritual, and Reassurance
By Indaia Whitcombe In the recent months I have begun to understand the functioning of the Boys & Girls Club on a deeper level. The mission of the Boys & Girls Club is to foster positive youth development and how they do this seems pretty clear to anyone who comes through the doors. The club […]
The Third Season at The Food Project
By Chris Fowler, November 2011 Autumn. Bright greens go yellow, then red, while the days get darker more quickly. Haste is made to harvest the remainder of the heartier crops: collards, kale, carrots, and leeks. Care is taken to prepare for the next season. Garlic cloves are planted by hand and hay makes a blanket […]
Fall in South Boston
By Indaia Whitcombe Coming off the train at the Broadway Station in South Boston, I am greeted by the clamor of large-scale construction- in a fenced lot along the first stretch of sidewalk, men in hard hats and backhoes are working together on the latest redevelopment project here on the lower end. Just yesterday I […]