Shadow Lives USA

In search of a better life in the United States

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Human rights worker walking into the desert with a bag of food near Arivaca, Arizona.
A crowd gathers just feet from a murder scene on Valentine’s Day. This bus driver was murdered in broad daylight just a few yards from a police station.
Immigration Protest – Dennis Hastert’s Hometown, Illinois, United States, 2006
Detained migrants are taken away in a Border Patrol truck. These migrants were detained in a ‘safe house’ in a trailer park in Yuma, Arizona. Border Patrol received a tip, raided the house and arrested more than 25 migrants and two ‘coyotes’ in the mobile home. The men were from various regions in Mexico. For many years Border Patrol has used a Catch and Release program in which they apprehend Mexican migrants and send them back to the other side without prosecution. Central American migrants, on the other hand, are sent back to their respective countries. As a result, many Central Americans pretend that they are Mexican to avoid being returned to Central America, which is much farther from the United States.
Deported men cover their faces with the paper bags of their only belongings that they arrived from the United States with after being deported. Many migrants arrive back to their home countries with only the clothes on their back having left everything that they had back in the United States. It's possible in many states to be undocumented and have a bank account, own a home and do many other things that United States citizens take for granted. Thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants are returned to their home countries each year by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. The agency operates about 48 flights each week to deport people from the United States back to their country of origin. Depending on the crime the migrants commit will determine whether or not they will be shackled throughout the flight. The flights originate from various parts of the United States. Approximately 400,000 people were deported this past year.
Concepcion Nino walks to her wedding in her hometown of Copala, Guerrero. Her and her husband Juan saved 10,000 US dollars while working for five years in the United States to throw a huge wedding for their community. Everyone in the town was invited and more than six hundered people attended the wedding.
Fourth of July in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. For more than 100 years the neighborhood has been a portral for recent immigrants arriving to the United States.
Guadalupe Guzman at her Back of the Yards home. Lupe has been selling elotes on the street for more than 15 years. This photograph was taken circa 2002.
Guzman household in the Back of the Yards circa 2002.
Patsy Cruz, is Chava and Gabriel's eldest daughter, is undocumented, but has two children who were born here. She was brought here as a young girl at the age of 7 and has built a life here with her husband.
Tomas, who has been working day labor jobs in the Albany Park neighborhood for more than 10 years, wanted his picture taken in the Juan Diego Workers’ Center his way. Braving the pouring rain, he stripped down to his underwear and went to the middle of the parking lot, where I took his photo. Tomas wanted a nude picture to show his connection to the center, for which the workers had struggled for more than three years. Ald. Margaret Laurino fought the workers the whole time. But, with the help of advocacy groups and a concerted community education campaign, the building opened in October 2004.
Pedro, a Mexican migrant and coyote crosses the Rio Grande on his way to the United States near McAllen, Texas. Although Arizona is more notoriously dangerous due to the high number of deaths in the desert from exposure, migrants also die in the shifting waters of the Rio Grande. These migrants arrived safely at their destination.
Guatemalan nationals are loaded onto an airplane named Molly at a municipal airport in Brownsville, Texas. The flight flew directly to La Aurora Airport in Guatemala City where the men and women were returned to their homeland. Thousands of Mexican and Central American migrants are returned to their home countries each year by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. The agency operates about 48 flights each week to deport people from the United States back to their country of origin. Depending on the crime the migrants commit will determine whether or not they will be shackled throughout the flight. The flights originate from various parts of the United States. Approximately 400,000 people were deported this past year.
Family meeting and kissing through the border fence at Friendship Park in San Ysidro, California 2009. Until 2010 migrants could visit through a fence that bisected the border just north of Tijuana and ran into the Pacific Ocean. Families would come there and visit for hours seeing loved ones. Recently, the United States government closed the place and is putting in new fencing that will make it impossible for informal reunions to occur.
Elizabeth Cruz– first daughter born in the United States – Cook County Hospital – Chicago, Illinois 2002

Jon Lowenstein

Jon Lowenstein specializes in long-term, in-depth documentary explorations that confront the realms of power, poverty, and social vi…

Topics
Social Justice
Sub Topics
Conflict Zones Poverty Refugee
Regions
Latin America North America

About Shadow Lives USA

Shadow Lives USA is a decade-long project that humanizes, in a highly intimate fashion, the experiences and lives of the millions of men and women who leave their homes in search of a better life in the United States. Overwhelmingly, these men and women leave to escape the brutal social violence and grinding poverty that increasingly define the conditions of life for poor and working people from Central America to the United States.I have witnessed the increasingly difficult odds that undocumented immigrants face as they encounter social violence and dire poverty in their homelands. These dangers include increasing levels of social violence, a brutal smuggling trade that systematically exploits them, an increasingly punitive legislative environment in the United States and a far tougher global economy in which they compete.To show this reality I have documented social violence in Guatemala, deportation flights from the United States to Mexico and Guatemala, illegal border crossings to the United States, undocumented migrants who’ve been handicapped while working on the job, migrant deaths in the desert, and the increasing militarization of the US/Mexico border. I have also spent considerable time with families torn apart by the schizophrenic federal immigration policy. I have also followed the intense effort by the migrant community to organize and fight for a place in their new country.

I began this project in the year 2000 and have been following this issue ever since. During this time I’ve spent years covering the issue of social violence in Guatemala and Mexico, crossed borders with undocumented immigrants seeking a better life, did ride alongs with Border Patrol and covered deportation flights with ICE and many other things. I’ve witnessed both the incredible resilience of the men and women who are seeking to better their lives both in the home countries and also the intense reality of life on the migrant trail from Central America through Mexico into the interior of the United States. My father left Germany at age 4 alone on the Kindertransport and was only reunited with his family two years later after spending time in England. He always imparted in my brothers and I the true gift that coming to United States was and helped newly arrived immigrants whenever he could.

The project has been supported by organizations and grants from Nikon, Getty Images, the Alicia Patterson Foundation, Kodak and others.