Private Story
Bitter Harvest: Blackness and Sugar in Dominican Republic.
Summary
Workers in the sugar sector of the Dominican Republic live in conditions beyond extreme poverty: no running water, electricity, cooking with charcoal, moldy rooms and without a future. The local media ignores this, so there is no reference for changing or improving their life. The focus of my work is to continue documenting the daily life of workers, collect interviews and create a web page with their voices and images, since the local media are not interested in the story. I think it is my duty to continue it with a deeper, meaning time expend observing and learning.
It is a continuation of a job I did for Mother Jones Magazine last year, although I have photographed different situation of poverty: banana workers in Dominican, or refugees in the Border of Mexico and Guatemala, the Earthquake in Haiti, I was faced with a human condition I had not seen before: an emptiness in their gaze, no future.
One of the reasons is that for the workers the Central Romana is “..the judiciary. They are the police. They are the one who rule over everyone’s life”. Or a as a worker told me: “the Central is a snake, it wraps around you, strangle you and them spit you”
After the article was finished I contacted local media to try to show the work, to no avail; thus I have decided to continue on my own an expand the work. Expanding meaning documenting deeper their conditions of living, recording their live story, go further in other spaces where migrant workers are living and ask how they cope with the neglect of their self and cultures? Furthermore, is to create a platform with pictures and interviews of themselves, creating a memory of their lives here, a dialogue for the visitor of the site; with the hope that provides
better understanding among us.
An Alexia grant will provide me with much needed funds and time required to truthfully bring to project to conclusion.
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