The Hands That Feed Us
The thousands of unseen farmworkers who make our daily meals possible are the subject of an exhibit of work by artist and photojournalist Jimmy Dorantes, to be presented by the nonprofit Photographer’s Eye in Escondido.
Dorantes has been photographing along the U.S.-Mexico border from a very young age, as his mother gave him his first camera at the age of three. His childhood home was on First Street in Calexico, directly across from the border fence, giving him a front-row seat on an ongoing social issue.
"The Hands That Feed Us" is an homage to his roots, as Dorantes counted friends, neighbors and relatives among laborers working the fields. “It’s a very personal subject,” Dorantes, a retired contract photographer for TIME magazine, said. “What I’ll be showing are pictures of migrant life, migrant workers sweating out in the fields like my mom would talk about."