About Shadow Lives

During the past decade, millions of Mexican and Central American migrants have left their homes and families, faced death on the journey to the United States and lived under the specter of criminality once in this country. Despite these obstacles, these resilient immigrants are transforming American culture and posing fundamental questions of justice, citizenship, and labor to the country. The struggle about how best to define and treat this growing and increasingly influential population is one of the most vital and complex issues of our time.

Jon Lowenstein has been documenting the lives of Latin American migrants since 2000 when he photographed the struggle of day laborers to find work each day on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Since then he has traveled throughout the United States and Mexico to document the lives of Latin American men and women who have taken the perilous journey North to the United States in search of the American Dream.

Lowenstein has partnered with several organizations, including the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the Getty Grant for Editorial Photography and the Blue Earth Alliance to create a multi-faceted media project that will serve as an historical document of the issue. Shadow Lives USA adds a humane and nuanced examination to the national debate about the millions of undocumented men and women who are currently living, working and becoming an integral part of the United States.