Left behind in all but his heart.
Today's immigrants, as they have for generation after generation, work the longest hours at the hardest jobs for the lowest pay, jobs that are just about impossible to fill. Luis Gutierrez
Part of Chien Chi Chang’s ongoing project depicting the divided lives of illegal Chinese immigrants in New York City, this photo captures the world many immigrants left for a sliver of a chance of a better life in America. While the subject’s face is omitted, viewers are able to extract a sense of longing from the picture. The monochrome color scheme adds a sense of mundane bleakness to contrast the bittersweet sentiment of nostalgia, emphasizing the polarizing planes immigrants must exist in: the harsh reality of the present, the sweet escape of the past, and the hopeful outlook of the future. The only other person in the picture is found by himself, distanced from the man holding his son’s photograph. He seems aloof and detached from the struggle of the father, presumably having his own problems to worry about, his own family left behind, enough so that he has no time to spare any sympathy. Using these framing and color techniques, the city is portrayed as an unloving and uncaring one, as it has neither enough time nor enough resources to deal with every inhabitant’s problem, leaving them to look out for themselves. The subject’s desire to return to his homeland is depicted through this cold portrayal of the New York that he lives in and the warm luxury found in the snapshot of his son. However, just as the immigrant is driven to return to his home, he is also driven to stay, and to work as hard as he can to provide for his family.Ironically it is this longing that motivates him to stay and gives him the strength to keep working. As the child of immigrants who left the Philippines to provide for their families, I see my parents struggle with the disconnect between them and those they left behind, the reasons why they left and the reasons that drive them to work through their struggles. Through a torrent of calls, texts, emails, and social media posts, they stay in contact with loved ones, yet the ease of communication over long distances only emphasizes the distance between them.
