The Opportunity, or Not, to Be American

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When Jon Lowenstein first came to Chicago 20 years ago, he was torn between pursuing a career as a photographer and devoting his life to teaching English as a seco nd language to Spanish speakers.

While studying for his master's in photography at Columbia College, he taught English to a group mostly of Mexican migrants. After receiving his degree, Mr. Lowenstein continued to teach English as a second language and mentor young people in community programs. From 2001 to 2005 he taught photography three days a week and coached basketball part time at a Chicago elementary school. Mr. Lowenstein also documented the school and surrounding community and helped create a community newspaper called Our Streets.

His passion for photography eventually won out, but his interest in immigration issues and community activism never diminished.

“Ultimately, you want something to happen from your pictures,” said Mr. Lowenstein, 42. “What's great about photography is that it can be amorphous. It can be different to each person, and you can use it many different ways, both for good and for bad. You can use it for propaganda that rea lly hurts people or for profit - or you can use it in positive ways and build bridges between communities.”

Mr. Lowenstein started by photographing Mexican day laborers and their families in Chicago. This led to “Shadow Lives, USA,” a look at Mexican and Central American migration to and from the United States that was 12 years in the making. It examines how undocumented people have gotten to the United States border and how their fortunes unfold afterward. While Mr. Lowenstein is hardly the only photographer to cover Mexican and Central American migration, few have done it as comprehensively over such an extended period of time.

His interest in immigration issues, he said, is seeded in his father's experiences in Nazi Germany before World War II. His father, Edward, who was 4 years old in 1939, was one of a few thousand Jewish children who were allowed to leave Germany on kindertransport - though his parents were forced to stay. While several relatives were killed in Nazi camps, the immediate family survived and reunited in the United States after the war. They were able to become citizens.

Mr. Lowenstein's “Shadow Lives” project pieces together different parts of the immigration story - what it's like back home, why people leave, the militarization of the United States-Mexico border, the struggle for immigration reform in the United States and the effects of political and criminal justice policy on migrants.

His focus now is Escondido, a small city north of San Diego, whose population is more than 40 percent Hispanic. Working with the University of San Diego Trans-Border Institute, he will be using his images to engage faith leaders and youth groups from various backgrounds in a dialogue around migration.

Jon Lowenstein/NOOR Migrants crossed through the Petén jungle in Guatemala, in the back of a smuggler's trucks.

Last week, the Open Society Documentary Photography Project awarded Mr. Lowenstein an Audience Engagement Grant to explore how his images can advance social change.

The grant challenges photographers to go beyond presenting photographs on a gallery wall or printed page and transform passive viewers into participants in social action.

Mr. Lowenstein, who is a member of the photo agency Noor, plans to use the grant to help the community create a newspaper for which residents will interview and photograph each other. He will also exhibit his photographs and employ a new app called Junaio, an “augmented reality” browser for a tablet device or iPhone that links images and qr codes to additional content.

The project strives to bring the different communities in Escodido together to share their experiences.

It also ties together his longstanding interests in photography and working with the Mexican community.

Earlier this year, Mr. Lowenstein traveled with his father to the station in Germany from which the kindertransport departed 70 years ago. The elder Mr. Lowenstein told of how his own father had held onto the train, refusing to let go as he watched his youngest child taken away. He was pulled off the train by the police as it left the station.

The younger Mr. Lowenstein had ne ver heard the tale before. It underscored, for him, what is compelling about recording immigration stories.

“My own family had the opportunity to be included in America,” Mr. Lowenstein said. “The people I photograph do not.”

Jon Lowenstein/NOOR Guatemala City, Guatemala.

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