Energized from a wonderful, week-long fellowship at the Institute for Justice and Journalism, I returned home with new eyes, encouraged to keep looking at the communities around me, and tell their stories.
Went to nearby New Bedford, Mass., wondering what had happened to the Guatemalan community there, six years since the Michael Bianco raid. On an April day in 2007, 350 mostly-Guatemalan immigrants had been taken into custody at a leather manufacturer; many were deported. I remember those days so vividly – just having had a baby, and also taking care of a toddler – how badly I wanted to be there to photograph, and learn.
With my boys now in school, I went back to New Bedford, and began talking to people – in the immigrant community, the church community, the social service community, one person always leading to another.
It was at the desk of Corinn Williams, at the Community Economic Development Center (CEDC), that I learned about a different, more pressing story happening now. Corinn is the Executive Director of the CEDC, yet seems to do much beyond her job description: doing translations for people, helping local immigrants with paperwork, guiding them on issues regarding their immigration status, and more. “Guatemalan – Mayan — people are being targeted for violent street crime,“ she said. She described stories of assaults, robberies, stabbings – that it happens weekly, sometimes daily, and that it has been going on for at least the last ten years. According to Corinn, these people work, they get paid, and they are being robbed on a regular basis. And, maybe more disturbingly, some are simply attacked, with no apparent motive. Few victims report the crimes to the police; most do not. It is a public health disaster, an “invisible” problem.
I realized I had to work on this.