Are you busy with homework, housework and lots of other stuff? Please spend a little time sharing the pains of thousands may lose their houses unpredictably, or who suffer from family separations. For migration to take place, there must be some factor that pushes people out or that pulls them to a new environment. If those people lived in a stable environment, they would not think about moving. People leave their native lands for a variety of reasons: religious or racial persecution, lack of political freedom, economic deprivation and disasters.
This photograph can reveal nothing unless you consider the viewpoints of the illegal immigrants. I can imagine their eyes looking through the steel bar, wondering how they can get into the promised lands. They are not sure about their futures. I can feel their greatest disappointments when they touch the steel bar. It is too hard to go through. So much emotion overwhelms. Salgado knows how to create a touching photograph. This photo was taken in a skew angle which makes me feel the endless length of the steel bar. It also means that the immigrants are hopeless to finish their purposes. So why don't we open some doors for them? It's not the door to go into the United States, but instead it's the door to lighten their lives.
Salgado's purpose of taking photographs is to raise our awareness about social problems. Recently, the most shocking issue is the earthquake in Haiti. We live in the world of high-speed technologies which provide us lots of information, news, analysis about the current situaton of Haiti. However, we don't live to enjoy those technologies. We don't just watch and hear about those terrible news without doing anything relating to that disaster. I feel really painful. When they assess damage in Haiti: "Tens of thousands of people lost their homes, 9 million people may need emergency aid", I wonder what I can do to help them. However, everything won't change if I don't put my effort into helping. Feel their pains and do something....Works Cited
Haiti devastated by earthquake." U.S.News". January 13, 2010. Web. January 20, 2010
Salgado, Sebastião. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture: New York, 2000. 28.
As you pointed out, this photograph shows that these people are migrating by choice, not out of obligation. They look into the United States with greater hope for the future than they had in the past. That is what is most striking to me. Of course, they recognize that they may lose everything. Still, they are willing to risk it all because there is a chance that they will find a better life. I am amazed at their courage. I am definitely not a proponent of illegal immigration, but I feel greater sympathy for migrants such as these when I look at America from their perspective. The debate will continue. While they are taking risks by trying to come here, we would be taking risks if we let them in too easily.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how you relly pull your audience into evaluating the photo you posted. At a first glance, I only saw two men looking through a few holes in a random wall. But after trying to put myself in their shoes and engaging my senses, I felt the hope and desire these men must be feeling. I have had such a blessed life, and imagining what they are going through adds more meaning for me personally in this photo. I love how you tied in the situation in Haiti. Very powerful ending words.
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