Feeding The Beast

The American Reality: Joakim Eskildsen For Time

I was going to post something about this amazing essay by Eskildsen, but I really can’t anything more to what Jake says here:

jakestangel:

Joakim Eskildsen, a photographer whose work I knew little of but now am poring over, shot the most magnificent photo essay recently for Time, on the state of American poverty throughout the country.

It’s a haunting, saddening, troubling, yet beautiful photo essay that I pretty much demand you go visit, whether you like photography or not.

From Time: “So many people spoke about the disappointment of the American Dream—this, they said, was the American Reality.” [Eskildsen says] In the accompanying magazine story, Barbara Kiviat argues that “there is no single archetype of America’s poor,” and that “understanding what poverty is in reality—and not in myth—is crucial” to efforts to erase the situation. Perhaps equally as crucial is the effort to put a face to the statistic, which Eskildsen has done here in haunting detail.

Again, just go here for the real deal.

All photos by Joakim Eskildsen, courtesy of Time and Eskildsen. Captions by Time.

Migrant farm workers sit outside a house in Firebaugh, located in California’s Central Valley. Albino, left, and Javier, center, came from Mexico in the 1970s.

DJ, 7, comes to stay on his grandparents’ boat with his brother Eli, 3, and learn the family trade. Normally the boat sits in the water, but the family takes it out every few years to paint and maintain it. They are waiting for BP to approve their claim for loss of livelihood, but have received no money so far. They continue to go out and fish, but fish stocks have not recovered, and much of what remains is contaminated.

Spirit Grass, 13, is part of a family of six who live in the Thunder Butte community of South Dakota, part of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Until recently, her family survived on $3,500 a year from her mother and father’s part-time and temporary jobs. This fall, her mother, a disabled veteran, found steady work in a medical lab, but like many of her neighbors, must still contend with the high cost of driving long distances to meet her family’s basic needs.

Felecia Ogbodo, 37, lost her job as a social worker and is filing for bankruptcy in Fresno. Her daughter Ermaline, 18, just started at UC Santa Cruz and wants to be a forensic psychologist, but also worries about needing to support her mother. Ermaline’s father, though no longer married to Felecia, is still a part of their lives and helps to support Ermaline.

Jennifer Rhoden, 27, and her boyfriend were forced to live under a bridge overpass in New Orleans when they could no longer afford rent.

Ronald Major, despite receiving disability benefits, lives under a bridge overpass in New Orleans.

Kate Three Lakes, one of Adell’s daughters, stands inside of her family’s ruined trailer. Kate was at a pregnancy check-up when the trailer caught fire. Kate left the abusive father of her children to live with her mother. Adell, her two daughters and her six grandchildren all live in a new but smaller FEMA trailer donated by the Tribal Housing Authority. Various members of the community banded together to donate basic necessities for their new house.

FEMA sells Native Americans condemned trailers which are dangerous to live in. Residents also have little incentive to buy their own home, since it disqualifies them from receiving general assistance. The system on the reservation, created in part by the Federal Government, has created a dependent society, the antithesis of Native Americans’ desire to be a self-reliant and sovereign nation.

Frances Menguista, 31, sits beside her neighbor’s son Micah Taylor, 3, in their Section 8 apartment complex in Fresno, Calif. Before having her baby in August, Menguista was a home service aide to the elderly. She and her fiancé, who does auto detailing part time while training to be a medical assistant, receive $200 a month in food stamps. Micah’s father has struggled to find work since he lost his job a few years ago.

Malik Chipps, 11, out biking with his friends after a rain storm in Cherry Creek S.D., lives with his family in a damp and moldy house, which his mother suspects is the cause of his asthma and seizures. Malik almost died from an asthma attack because it took so long for the ambulance to reach him. The family expects to move into a new house soon.