“Return to Sender: Please Amend Your Records”
When did people lose their humanity? When did they become something to get rid off? Every day, people who call the United States home—including the parents/guardians of US citizen children, tax-paying employees, and respected community members—are being arrested, locked up, and deported under a system that often does not even weigh their deep and longstanding ties in the balance. Under that same system, immigrants struggle to maintain their identities as they attempt to survive. Seen as disposable, constantly told “to go back to where you came from”, this body of work speaks to that treatment. Documented and undocumented immigrants alike are searching for a better life in a place that just wants to Return to Sender.
These are our stories.
Digital postcard with a woodblock printed stamp, 2020.
"It's like living in two worlds; my home reincarnated in my apartment, and the outside world, the one I craved so hard to reach."
"Sometimes I wonder what life would be like had I stayed, had I done the expected, and not jumped without a safety net."
"All I ever wanted was to serve and give back to the place that gave me my start, my options. But a part of me knew that it would never be enough."