VISIBILITY Magazine Issue 01. (May 2016) | Page 30

Jasmine Rashid THE AMERICANS I created this portrait series as a personal reflection on multiculturalism and citizenship in a country that has always been preoccupied with binary identification. The idea began with my own diasporic experience, in which I have come to know my father’s homeland only through visual culture; distanced by physical space and literacy. From there, I shot with three individuals, in their personal settings, allowing each subject to ascertain nuanced systems of representation in order to document the multiplicity of lived experiences. Here, you’ll find one individual who has consistently been denied a credible Afro-Latino identity, as a result of those around him not understanding the different meanings of constructed “race” versus “ethnicity.” Another is one who often nostalgically longs to be elsewhere; with the place she calls home positioned on the other side of the world and loved ones remaining internationally distanced. Our final subject has been externally identified as a noncitizen – encountering the simplified and unwelcomed stereotypes that accompany this position –despite living in America for the majority of his life. While the stories documented in the images are individual accounts, the experiences aim for universality for those of us who have ever been othered and politicized by the constraints of American society. Existing as a multicultural subject is beautifully and uniquely laden in unending complexity, as we attempt to portray our authentic selves to the outside world while simultaneously coming into new understandings of who we are internally.   30