Did you know this famous picture was taken in Nipomo? Well it was. By Dorothea Lange. A huge version of it hangs at our library and there's even an elementary school up on the mesa named after Ms. Lange. I've seen this picture a gazillion times. Only the other day, it hit me like a ton of bricks. She was a migrant farm worker w/7 kids and a husband dead of tuberculosis. Nobody knows what happened to her after this picture was taken. I used to feel really bad when I looked at this picture. In a detached historical kinda way. Upon closer inspection, I got all weepy and shit. I fully recognized that look on her face. That look of "What the fuck am I gonna do now???" because it's all up to her. So I looked a little closer. At her baby's full and rounded cheek. At her older children's sweet hairline with their sturdy, clean necks. I think I know what happened to her. I like to think she went on to kick some ass.
3 comments:
i love that photo, its wonderful and full of so much.
I love those photos from that time. There is a photo from the Depressio era of this black woman's hands in front of her apron/dress. Flipping just.. gah. :)
I pasted that photo in my cool-pictures'nstuff-collectionbook years ago. I always thought she looked poor, but not lost at all. It has some bravery to be the mother of those two little kids who completely depend on you. I think she had no choice but being brave. For her kids, being the cause and the goal of her bravery. And she will make it. No doubt.
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