When we think of the 60s today, we may conjure a young girl topless and high on LSD, dancing to wild rock and roll music. But those years weren t at all like that for much of America. Our visions of this time often come more from imagination than from reality. What was really going on? In that era, America was deeply divided and at war with itself. The flamboyant, glamorous myth of a whole generation seeking freedom is so much more appealing to our idea of ourselves as Americans that we are ever reaching toward the new, throwing off the old. But there was a very gritty side to those years, too. It took great struggles to right injustices and move our culture toward a more egalitarian society. Enormous strides were made, but with the abruptness of an earthquake relieving pent-up pressure along a fault line and often, seemingly, with just as much disruption. Yet at the same time, daily life continued apace for many: school days and playtimes, barbecues and roller rinks, front porches and days at the beach. These pages offer a portrait of America the way it really was for me as I lived it and documented it from 1969, when I turned 18 and first began to identify myself as a photographer, through President Nixon s resignation in 1974, which many consider the true end of the decade. For those of us who were there, this portrait will spark thoughtful remembrances. For those who were not there, it will add to your understanding of our collective history. This was a time in America we should not forget. It was a time when young Americans saw much promise and felt that fundamental change was possible. It was a time when young people could dream of a better world.

What's Going On? 1969-1974

Arts & Photography

Ken Light

Photography & Video

Light Squared Media

Black and white photographs of migrant farm workers in the USA. Nice discussion of seasonal labor and the Farm Workers' Unions.

With These Hands

Pilgrim-Press

Photographs document the lives of rural Mexicans, the work of U.S. immigration agents, and the everyday life of illegal aliens working in the U.S

To the Promised Land

Mary Jo McConahay

Aperture

"Everything in the world must be shown and people around the world must have an idea of what's happening to the other people around the world. I believe this is a function of the vector that the documentary photographer must have, to show one person's existence to another."—Sebastião Salgado 
 Illustrated with a compelling image from each photographer, Witness in Our Time traces the recent history of social documentary photography in the words of twenty-two of the genre's best photographers, editors, and curators, showing that the profession remains vital, innovative, and committed to social change. Featuring interviews with Hansel Mieth, Walter Rosenblum, Michelle Vignes, Wayne Miller, Peter Magubane, Matt Herron, Jill Freedman, Mary Ellen Mark, Earl Dotter, Eugene Richards, Susan Meiselas, Sebastião Salgado, Graciela Iturbide, Antonin Kratochvil, Donna Ferrato, Joseph Rodriguez, Dayanita Singh, Fazal Sheikh, Gifford Hampshire, Peter Howe, Colin Jacobson, and Ann Wilkes Tucker

Witness in Our Time: Working Lives of Documentary Photographers

Reference

Smithsonian

Hardcover with tip-on front and verso 136 pages 66 plates 11.25 x 13.25" Introductory text by José Ángel Navejas in English and Spanish ISBN 978-1-942953-43-2 “The stretch between Tijuana and San Diego is long. Very long. And it is as treacherous as it is beautiful. It is unlikely that anybody who has ever crossed it will easily forget it. Its desert like landscape is bound to carve itself equally onto body and soul.” -José Ángel Navejas Between 1983 and 1987 along the California/Mexico border, Ken Light took his Hasselblad camera and flash and rode along with US Border Patrol agents in the middle of the night as they combed the Otay Mesa looking for “illegal aliens.” He was there when they were apprehended – captured by authorities as well as the photographer’s flash. The black and white images are stark, impromptu mug shots in the desert, taken at a moment of extreme vulnerability, when hope gave way to despair, migrants caught in a cruel game of hide and seek. Light’s photographs and José Ángel Navejas’ first hand, compelling memoir, presented in both English and Spanish, offer testimony of the harrowing night border crossing of those desperately seeking a chance a better life. A day after Navejas first crossed the US border from Mexico, he was caught and deported back onto the streets of Tijuana. Undeterred, he crawled back through a tunnel to San Diego, where he entered the United States forever. In piercing words and in strobe lit images caught against the dark of night, Midnight La Frontera’s immediacy underscores the struggle and defiance of those who hike for days and weeks looking for the American Dream.

Midnight La Frontera

Tbw Books