honorable mention
Griselda San Martin united states
title
The Children of San Quintin
This miserable income is not enough to satisfy their children’s basic needs of decent housing, healthcare and education, one of the most crucial things a child can use to overcome poverty and build a better future. Many kids are unable to attend school because their families cannot afford the nominal fees or pay for uniforms and shoes. They are instead left unattended as the parents head out to the farms or are soon taken to the fields where they are put to work helping to harvest the crops. With little or no resources and limited access to an education, their childhood is lost and the cycle of poverty is perpetuated with little hope of a better future.
The Children of San Quintin is a photography project that documents the situation of migrant farmworkers' children in Mexico and addresses pressing social issues such as poverty, health and human rights violations. My intention is to denounce the inhumane living conditions that this families endure as a result of the miserable pay that they receive meanwhile the corporations they work for make millions by the sweat of these laborers’ brow.
She has received several scholarships to develop her projects, such as the Beverly Sears scholarship in Boulder, Colorado and the George and Joyce Moss Scholarship in New York.
She was awarded second place at the Gender and Justice competition held by the Supreme Court of Mexico, United Nations Women, United Nations Human Rights of Mexico and several other organizations in November 2014.
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entry description
In Mexico’s San Quintin valley, thousands of indigenous farmworkers are hired every day as a source of cheap and flexible labor. The areas where they live are of difficult access and large families are crammed into small rooms in makeshift houses made of cardboard and plastic, without electricity or running water. In the fields, they endure long hours hand-picking produce in extremely hot temperatures making as much in a day as they would make in the U.S. in an hour, about 9 US dollars for shifts of up to 14 hours.This miserable income is not enough to satisfy their children’s basic needs of decent housing, healthcare and education, one of the most crucial things a child can use to overcome poverty and build a better future. Many kids are unable to attend school because their families cannot afford the nominal fees or pay for uniforms and shoes. They are instead left unattended as the parents head out to the farms or are soon taken to the fields where they are put to work helping to harvest the crops. With little or no resources and limited access to an education, their childhood is lost and the cycle of poverty is perpetuated with little hope of a better future.
The Children of San Quintin is a photography project that documents the situation of migrant farmworkers' children in Mexico and addresses pressing social issues such as poverty, health and human rights violations. My intention is to denounce the inhumane living conditions that this families endure as a result of the miserable pay that they receive meanwhile the corporations they work for make millions by the sweat of these laborers’ brow.
about the photographer
Griselda San Martin is a documentary photographer and visual journalist based in New York City and Tijuana, Mexico. She studied Business Administration at Esade Business School in Barcelona and graduated with an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2013. She has been photographing and documenting the U.S.-Mexico border for the past three years. In June 2015 she graduated from the the Photojournalism and Documentary photography program at the International Center of Photography in New York. Her documentary work explores transborder and transnational issues and focuses on concepts of identity and belonging in diasporic communities and ethnic minorities.She has received several scholarships to develop her projects, such as the Beverly Sears scholarship in Boulder, Colorado and the George and Joyce Moss Scholarship in New York.
She was awarded second place at the Gender and Justice competition held by the Supreme Court of Mexico, United Nations Women, United Nations Human Rights of Mexico and several other organizations in November 2014.
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