Around this time of year, the gringo and Canadian (they are adamant they are NOT gringos) population in Oaxaca begins to grow — an increase that will last for the duration of winter. Called “snowbirds” by the resident ex-pats, they are an eclectic and interesting crowd. Among them are a couple of talented people with whom I have become acquainted — San Francisco Bay Area based writer, Robert Adler (who, along with Jo Ann Wexler, publishes the invaluable, Viva Oaxaca) and Seattle photographer, Tom Feher.
Robert and Tom have embarked on an ambitious project interviewing and photographing undocumented immigrants on their arduous and dangerous journey from Mexico and Central America, en-route to El Norte. The result is to be a traveling exhibition of 24 to 30 of near life-size images on narrow aluminum sheets designed to be hung from the ceiling and accompanied by a booklet with the biography of each immigrant. The exhibition will be called, I Have a Name — the title coming from a neighbor of Tom’s, “who, having hired a Latino man to do some work, refused to call him by his right name and referred to him only as “the Mexican”, even though he was from Guatemala. ”
The decision to leave all that is known and loved for distant country and alien culture is not undertaken lightly. The creators of this project hope, in the words of Robert, that the exhibit, “will convey what we’ve been learning firsthand–that it’s one thing to have a concept such as ‘migrant,’ ‘migrant worker,’ ‘undocumented worker,’ or ‘illegal alien,’ and quite another to know people as individuals with their own names, faces, life stories and dreams.”
This is an expensive project and Robert and Tom need your help to bring I Have a Name to fruition. They have mounted a fundraising campaign on the crowd-finding site, Indiegogo. Please consider helping them raise $25,000 before their November 25, 2013 deadline.
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Shannon, thanks for posting this, as I did recently. You couldn’t have said it better. This is an important and worthy project. I made a gift, and I hope every reader of your blog and mine will, too. Abrazos, Norma
As dramatic and moving as this exhibit sounds, I am uncomfortable that “nearly lifesize pictures of people,” replete with their names , would put these migrants in danger???
Hi Kay,
That’s a very important issue, and one Robert and I wrestled with for quite a while. We discuss this at length with each of the migrantes and tell them that this is a purely voluntary act on their part. They also sign a written permission form for the photograph. And the names of the individuals are not posted anywhere (ironic in light of the title of the project).
That obviously does not remove the danger, but they understand it and are willing to go ahead for the sake of the project.
I hope this answers your question.
Tom Feher
I see that they are on Indiegogo, do they also have a similar fund raising effort on Kickstarter. I’ve got several friends and acquaintances that have had really good luck getting off the ground using Kickstarter.
I wish them luck.