Acknowledgements

We want to thank every person in this exhibit who courageously shared their story. Each participant in Building Bridges took time from their challenging lives to answer our questions thoughtfully and recount their personal journey, in order to build bridges, not walls!

We especially want to thank Pastor Judy Hanlon of the Hadwen Park Congregational Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, who has linked her remarkable LGBTQ Asylum Support Task Force with Family Diversity Projects, enabling us to share the stories of a small group of the many asylum-seekers this group has supported.

This online version of our traveling photo-text exhibit, Building Bridges: Portraits of Immigrants and Refugees, was created with the support of The Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion (CLGS), and its Executive Director, Bernard Schlager, PhD, who commissioned this project.

Statue of Liberty image by Stefano Brivio. §

Artist Statements

Peggy Gillespie, interviewer/editor

 “The human spirit cannot be contained by our artificial borders. I think we’d be a diminished species and would be likely heading towards extinction if we did not allow for any migration. The cross-pollination of ideas has created a more resilient and more peaceful human family than the world has ever seen. Why would anyone not want that?” - Bongani Mngomezulu, Swaziland

Building Bridges offers an intimate view of the lives of immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers. With the escalation of anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, it feels crucial to understand why each individual in this exhibit came to the United States and what their lives are like now. These personal stories are full of gratitude and hope, but some are quite painful to read and contemplate. All are essential to share, however, as we seek to broaden our understanding of this issue.

I interviewed these immigrants and refugees in person and via email, asking them to share stories about their lives as well as their views about the current governmental attitudes about immigration. In these interviews, you will see how much those who have become citizens have given back to the United States, their adopted country, as well as how much the recent refugees and asylum-seekers yearn to contribute.

I want to thank each person in this exhibit. Every immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeker in Building Bridges took time from their challenging lives to answer my questions thoughtfully and recount their experiences. Each person courageously chose to share their personal journey with you in order to, as Victorien Ndounou from Gabon said, “Build bridges, not walls!”

Mark Chester, Photographer (Black & White)

In my youth my penchant to discover places and people began, National Geographic my guide; for forty years with wanderlust and curiosity I covered the continents photographing cultural landscapes. I’ve come full circle—traveling the world not leaving the state. My current collection of informal, environmental portraits of ethnic diversity in Massachusetts entitled The Bay State: A Multicultural Landscape—400-plus photographs that represent over 180 countries—is touring the state. My hope with this project is to bring awareness to our cultural diversity; through the naturalized U.S. citizens residing in the Commonwealth. Prompted by the 2010 Census, the seed was planted earlier on assignment at Ellis Island for a 1978 essay by mentor Charles Kuralt.  Unlike my candid street photography, this is a straightforward approach: individuals looking into the camera, telling stories through expression, place, and pose. I’m pleased to share with Family Diversity Projects my photographs of subjects who agreed to be interviewed by Peggy Gillespie, presented along with Gigi Kaeser’s color photographs of asylum-seekers and refugees, to create the exhibit you are seeing now:  Building Bridges: Portraits of Immigrants and Refugees.

Gigi Kaeser, Photographer (Color)

The color photos appear to be from a separate exhibit from the black and white photos—a different photographer, a different style, and a different story. Two projects blended into a single story of human bravery and resourcefulness. 

Photographing this group of people, asylum-seekers, was like all other photo shoots I have done, in that I wanted the subjects to trust me so they could relax and show themselves fully for the sake of the image. But for this group there is a difference. Many of them were forced to leave their lives, family, friends, and culture because they were in danger, and in some cases there is risk involved in participating in Building Bridges. I want to thank them all for being part of this project. We must also thank Pastor Judy Hanlon at the Hadwen Park Congregational Church in Worcester, MA, who has linked her LGBT Asylum Support Task Force project and ours so that we can tell these stories and help to send these remarkable people across the bridge to new satisfying lives.