THE UNSUNG HEROES OF THE U.S. WORKFORCE: LATINO IMMIGRANT WORKERS

Immigrant latinos represent a valuable part of the U.S. workforce.  Cheap labor has always been a huge asset to corporations in the U.S.  who employ immigrant workers for jobs that need to get done, but nobody really wants to take on.  By employing immigrant workers companies save huge amounts of money that would otherwise pay for insurance benefits among other costs that come along with employing a legal worker.  In other words, cheap labor contributes to the wealth of U.S. companies and in turn to lucrative earnings of corporations.

We recently came across an amazing photographer by the name of Dulce Pinzon who has captured the lives of these unsung heroes of the U.S. workforce.  Dishwashers and other laborers take center in Dulce's art.  Dulce Pinzón was born in Mexico City in 1974. She studied Mass Media Communications at the Universidad de Las Americas in Puebla Mexico and Photography at Indiana University in Pennsylvania. In 1995 she moved to New York where she 

studied at The International Center of Photography (Pinzon 1).

As a young Mexican artist living in the US, Dulce soon found new inspiration for her photography in feelings of nostalgia, questions of identity, and political and cultural frustrations. In her black and white series “Viviendo en el Gabacho” (a Mexican colloquialism for living in the US) she illustrates the phenomenon of the integration of the Mexican immigrant into the New York landscape (Pinzon 1).  The Real Story of the superheroes” comes full circle to reintroduce the Mexican immigrant in New York in a satirical documentary style featuring ordinary men and women in their work environment donning superhero garb, thus raising questions of both our definition of heroism and our ignorance of and indifference to the workforce that fuels our ever-consuming economy (Pinzon 1)

Her work has been published and collected internationally. In 2001 her photos were used for the cover of a publication of Howard Zinn’s book “A People’s History of the United States”. In 2002 Dulce won the prestigious Jovenes Creadores grant in Mexico for her work. In 2006 she won an Honorific Mention in the Santa Fe project competition and she won the 12th edition of the Mexican Biennial of El Centro de La Imagen (Pinzon 1). Dulce was a 2006 fellow in Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts and is now participating in the 2007 fall session of the Bronx Museum’s AIM program. She is currently a Ford Foundation fellow and lives in Brooklyn New York (Pinzon 1).

 Here's a few of the photographs that we found most interesting and compelling.  

*Latinas take care of your children, teach them manners AND jump start them with the spanish language skills.  Put a price tag on that!

*Some are climbing buildings cleaning the windows with that amazing view from your office.  

*Others are washing your underwear and dirty laundry!  

We personally find Dulce's work not only inspiring but also empowering.  You can read more about her work on her webiste:  http://www.dulcepinzon.com.   Make sure to checkout the site to view complete series!

- (1) Sources:  Pinzon, Dulce.  "Dulce Pinzon Biography."  http://www.dulcepinzon.com/index.

htm.  8 Jul. 09