Photos of immigrant workers dressed as superheroes
Artist Dulce Pinzón took photographs of Mexican immigrant workers in New York City dressed as superheroes. The series, titled "The Real Story of the Superheroes," is an homage to these individuals who work long hours in lousy conditions for crap money, much of which they send home to their families in Mexico. Seen here as The Hulk is Paulino Cardozo from the State of Guerrero. Cardoza loads trucks in New York and sends $300 a week home.
From Pinzón's artist statement:
From Pinzón's artist statement:
The Mexican economy has quietly become dependent on the money sent from workers in the US. Conversely, the US economy has quietly become dependent on the labor of Mexican immigrants. Along with the depth of their sacrifice, it is the quietness of this dependence which makes Mexican immigrant workers a subject of interest.Link (via We Make Money Not Art)
The principal objective of this series is to pay homage to these brave and determined men and women that somehow manage, without the help of any supernatural power, to withstand extreme conditions of labor in order to help their families and communities survive and prosper.
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"Along with the depth of their sacrifice..."
It's called exploitation, and it's illegal for two reasons: humanitarian (exploitation of the immigrant worker), and economic (it undermines the American job market). If the majority of people complaining about it didn't come across as xenophobic rightwing culture-war nutjobs, then maybe we'd actually be able to do something about it. (Never mind that the corporate conservative wing is crying about this all the way to the bank.)
"the depth of their sacrifice"
This I have trouble buying. Clearly their lives have been improved by the choices they've made, or they could turn around and bring their new job skills back and build a better Mexico/Bolivia/Romania/Wherever. Only from the comfort of our high-salary wired deskjobs do these jobs look like a "sacrifice;" to the low-skilled American worker who has been replaced that "sacrifice" is a lost opportunity.