In June 2018, photographer John Moore captured a photo that unveiled the essence of asylum seeker border crossings. A 2-year-old Honduran girl stands crying in front of a border patrol agent while her mother is face to face with the authority figure. Taken from the child’s point of view, we see the young girl rendered helpless as adults tower over engaged in a legal search of bodies (Garcia-Navarro, 2018). The photos “out” the mother and daughter as asylum seekers in a call for empathy. Similar to the DREAMers in Beltran’s (2015) work, the image works to illuminate “the human face on the complex dynamics of migration as the space of economic arrangements, human desire, and community building” (p.94) After the image went viral the public responded on social media calling the current political administration a shame, people pressures lawmakers to address the separation of families, and most recently the photo won 2019 world press photo of the year (Mark & Ralph, 2019).
While many were aware of current immigration policies, the image forced its spectators to come to terms with the Realities of criminalizing asylum seekers. As Ranciere affirms images have a life of their own; “showing everything that can not be said” (p. 90). In Moore’s image the spectator must cope with harsh reality of families making the trek across the border while the agent captures kin as a part of their job. The photo of the little girl crying makes the spectator wonder, ‘is the situation created at the border just or unjust?’ ‘Will her cries be heard outside this photo or will people continue to look away?’ As Azoulay (2008) highlights, “the spectators work is that of prolonged observation” (p.159). Therefore, it is up to the spectator to do the work of looking and acknowledging the hard truths photos capture.
Garcia-Navarro, L. (2018). ‘It was hard to take this pictures knowing what was coming next’, NPR. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2018/06/17/620775153/a-photojournalist-at-the-border
Mark, M., Ralph, P. (2019). A getty photographer tells the story behind heartbreaking photo he took of a migrant girl sobbing while agents questioned her mom at the border, which just won world press photo of the year, Business Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/photo-migrant-girl-cries-as-border-agents-question-mom-john-moore-2018-6