Seeking Venues

Funded by NALAC through the support of the Ford Foundation and JP Morgan Chase, this exhibit includes not only photographs but also oral histories about the lives of Hispanic business owners, their trials and triumphs. This project was presented as it evolved at Louisburg College in 2007, in the Durham City Mayor’s office in early 2008, and at NC State in Fall, 2008. It will tour Fall, 2010, at various colleges in the South. It comes complete with panels of excerpts as well as information on economic impacts of immigrant business.

This is an exciting exhibit of 15 images of Chávez’s life and work from the early 1970s until his death in 1993. José was present for many of César’s actions. This exhibit includes behind-the-scenes looks at farm worker protests and fasts, as well as moving images of Chávez’s funeral. It refreshes our memories of the impact of Chávez on all of the efforts continued today on behalf of workers, and introduces young people and new immigrants to César’s life and work. This was most recently presented at Tulsa Public Library to great reviews in March, 2010.

This work is the result of José's intense documentation of Latinos living in the southern United States: dozens of images of work, play, protest, and celebration. This exhibit represents a more nuanced contribution to the current debates on immigration and assimilation. The work has recently shown at USC Columbia, Francis Marion University, and Birmingham Southern College. A sub-set of this exhibit, Al Norte al "Norte," contains images solely from North Carolina and has shown at NC State, Wake Forest University, UNC Charlotte, Greenville Museum of Art, and Pilgrim United Church of Christ, Durham, NC.

"Latina" spans the four decades of José's career, focusing solely on Hispanic women across the United States and their everyday lives, loves, and relationships. This exhibit allows the viewer to see parallels across the experiences of Latinas of different ethnicities, of different ages, of immigrant backgrounds or many generations native-born. It debuted at Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina, in Fall of 2008.