Visual Arts Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2020
Volume
6
Issue
2
Journal
Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.24926/24716839.10850
Abstract
In 1989, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas (b. 1948) photographed irregular border crossings in southern California. At the time, it was relatively easy for undocumented migrants from Central America and Mexico to cross between ports of entry, even as there was growing pressure on American officials to address border security.1 One photograph in Meiselas’s Crossings series depicts a border patrol officer apprehending a migrant off the interstate near Oceanside (fig. 1). Two torsos fill the center of the image. The officer grasps the man’s clothing, propelling him toward the nearby vehicle. With heads cut off by the frame and backs turned, the uniform and the force of the interaction conveys the unequal power dynamic. This series of black-and-white photographs tells a story of the struggle between people attempting to cross into the United States and the border agents trying to stop them. It follows Meiselas’s work in Central America during the 1970s and 1980s and connects events in that region to pressure at the border.
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