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America in the Middle

27 images Created 15 Dec 2017

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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Lauressa Joseph, 14, rides on the back of a bike steered by her brother Gregory Joseph, 13, through their Galveston neighborhood where they live with their mother Freelander Little. Little lost her house during Hurricane Ike in 2008 and now lives in a home elevated eight feet off of the ground. "We came from a broken place to a healed place -- and still striving for better," Little said.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Rescue workers and civilians wait for emergency crews in a flooded dump truck in the Meyerland area of Houston, which received an unprecedented 50 inches of rainfall. Decades of rapid growth in Houston have spread concrete and asphalt over much of the city's more than 600 square miles. New development replaced floodplains, exacerbating drainage problems in a city that already tends to flood.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Polluted floodwater surrounds homes in Beaumont, Texas.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
    03-Harvey.JPG
  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Seth Love, a biologist with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, tosses carp caught in nearby waterways. Illinois DNR biologists made note of the sampling's biological data including size and sex.<br />
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From Tyler Kelley's story: In 2010, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources began "harvesting” on a large scale using commercial fishermen. The program removes upwards of 1 million pounds from the Illinois River each year. Yet still, in some places, 75 percent of the river’s biomass — meaning the aggregate of all living material — is Asian carp.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
    04-2018-IllinoisCarp-9309.JPG
  • Braxton Miller, 5, swings near a culvert that connects the historic African American Pughsville neighborhood to the larger drainage system.<br />
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Residents in Suffolk, Virginia say that new homes built for military families have caused increased flooding after rainfall and sewage backup in their bathtubs and toilets.<br />
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On assignment for the Guardian
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  • Mary Hill, who holds her family’s oyster leases, poses for a portrait on her boat. Oyster farming was shut down in February 2021 after a wastewater line break spilled sewage into the James River. This health emergency created additional economic hardship after the pandemic severely limited the oyster business for the last year.<br />
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As more development has come into the area, Hill’s access to her leases has become more limited. Traveling from her home in Suffolk to her oyster boat in Newport News takes at least half an hour. Traveling the waterway to her leases takes about 90 minutes.<br />
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On assignment for the Guardian
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  • Karen Alley holds her granddaughter Layla Kegg's hand at their home in Portsmouth, Ohio. "When I see someone’s arms, I think of my mom because I saw her shooting up," Kegg said.<br />
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Layla Kegg, 17, lives with her grandmother and great-grandfather in Portsmouth, a southern Ohio town with elevated opioid addiction rates. “Every time I come home, I ask, ‘where’s mom?’” she said. Her mother, Nikki Horr, became addicted to painkillers while working as a hospice nurse. She had recently renewed contact with an abusive boyfriend and the family didn't know where she was staying.<br />
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A junior at Portsmouth High School, Kegg is navigating teenage life with normal concerns like good grades, the next softball game and her upcoming prom, but as her mom continues to fight back from addiction, Kegg also worries that her mother could overdose like so many others have in her hometown.<br />
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For the New York Times: ‘Become My Mom Again’: What It’s Like to Grow Up Amid the Opioid Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/us/opioid-children-addiction.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nythealth
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Adolfo Guerra rests in his home after performing yard work in temperatures that typically reach the 90s and 100s. Guerra, a Guatemalan immigrant who has permanent residency in the United States, works six days a week and is studying mechanical maintenance and engineering.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Manchester is a small and impoverished community in southeastern Houston, which does not have zoning laws. The homes are nestled between the Houston Ship Channel and several sprawling industrial facilities, including the Valero Houston Refinery, Westway Feed Products and Texas Port Recycling. The Environmental Protection Agency has identified dangerous levels of pollution in the Manchester air.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
    06-Manchester-8905.JPG
  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • In a dense fog, a statue, honoring the Confederate dead and inscribed with the name of Civil War general Jubal Early, stands in front of the Franklin County Courthouse. The statue was accidentally damaged in 2007 and erected again in 2010. In 2020, Black Lives Matter organizers called for it to be taken down.<br />
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Black Lives Matter organizers are trying to keep the movement’s momentum going in Franklin County in southern Virginia. But the politics of the community are complicated. Two local police officers were charged in connection with the January 6th Capitol riot; Confederate soldiers are honored with a statue in front of the courthouse; and a new militia organized in the county in 2020.<br />
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On assignment for The New York Times
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  • Aaron Hodges, who started the Franklin County Militia in 2020, plays with his eldest son in their backyard.<br />
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Black Lives Matter organizers are trying to keep the movement’s momentum going in Franklin County in southern Virginia. But the politics of the community are complicated. Two local police officers were charged in connection with the January 6th Capitol riot; Confederate soldiers are honored with a statue in front of the courthouse; and a new militia organized in the county in 2020.<br />
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On assignment for The New York Times
    08b-20210228-NYTrockymount-2229.JPG
  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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A man walks through a quiet downtown Clinton, which has struggled to keep population and employment numbers steady.<br />
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A transformation to a knowledge-based economy has not taken root here in Clinton, Iowa along the Mississippi River. But there has been a profound structural change of another sort: white working class voters switched from Democrat to solidly Republican in the last presidential election, upending decades of political predictability.<br />
Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
    08c-ClintonIA-0806.JPG
  • With his mother Amanda Smith, at left, Cullen Schachtschneider, 6, visits family nurse practitioner Tina Bettin at ThedaCare Physicians in Manawa. Schachtschneider's wounds have healed almost completely.<br />
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Three months earlier, Schachtschneider nearly lost his leg when he got tangled up with a machine on the family's small dairy farm near Ogdensburg, Wisconsin. Missing most of his kindergarten year, Schachtschneider has undergone multiple surgeries and skin grafts.<br />
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With falling milk prices, the family's small dairy is unable to hire outside help to manage daily tasks, so many of these chore responsibilities fall on the shoulders of the young Schachtschneider boys. <br />
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Photographed on assignment for the New York Times
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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For Mother Jones: “Addicted To Hate: What does it take to quit violent racism for good?” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/reform-white-supremacists-shane-johnson-life-after-hate/<br />
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Shane Johnson, a former leader of the Kokomo skinheads, holds his son as they grab lunch in a town near his home in north central Indiana. Johnson's father was an Imperial Nighthawk of the Indiana White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. After his father's death, Johnson questioned the Klan's belief system. After renouncing white nationalism, he was beat by family members and had to go into hiding.
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Too young to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, Jonathan Laflash, 17, felt that Donald Trump would make positive changes for people in situations similar to his. After dropping out of high school, he’s staying with his girlfriend, though he said that arrangement wouldn't likely last. He said he feared that he would be homeless soon, as is the case for one of his close friends. "I've been looking for a job," he said, though he admitted that he didn't have many options.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Yasmeen Elagha holds Palestinian flags as she cheers on the Women's March on Chicago. "I know this is a women's march, and as a woman, I want to fight for those rights, but I also want to bring awareness of the Middle Eastern struggle, of the Palestinian struggle, of the Muslim struggle, especially as a veiled woman. My representation here is to let people know that I stand with them, so I would like them to stand with me," Yasmeen Elagha said.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • A woman tidies the camp in Matamoros, which is home to hundreds of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. The Gateway International Bridge, which leads into Brownsville, Texas, is seen in the background.<br />
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The first phase of a new border wall is being erected near Donna, Texas in the Rio Grande Valley.  <br />
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For the New York Times 'Under Construction in Texas: The First New Section of Border Wall' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/us/border-wall-texas.html
    12-2019-SchRGV-2809.jpg
  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Karlos Denson, 9, plays an acrobatic version of football outside of his home in the Fourth Ward, one of Janesville's most impoverished neighborhoods.<br />
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Amy Goldstein excerpt:<br />
Janesville, Wisconsin, lies three fourths of the way from Chicago to Madison along Interstate 90's path across America from coast to coast. It is a county seat of 63,000, built along a bend in the Rock River. It is the hometown of House Speaker Paul Ryan. It is an old United Auto Workers town in a state led by a new generation of conservative, Gov. Scott Walker (R). It is a Democratic town still, though the economic blow that befell Janesville is the kind of reversal of fortune that drove many working class Americans to support Donald Trump for president.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
    12-Janesville-0061.JPG
  • Demetrios Manolitsis, who bought 15 medallions at inflated prices, poses for a portrait in his office. Under his arm is a stack of legal paperwork related to taxi medallion loans. He now runs a fleet of vehicles out of King Auto Repair and Body Shop but is not sure he will be able to sustain the business.<br />
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Chicago taxi medallions, now worth about $25,000, were once valued at nearly $400,000. The market's crash and predatory loans caused many medallion owners to declare bankruptcy in a situation made worse by the introduction of ride share apps like Lyft and Uber to the market.<br />
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For the New York Times "‘We Were Wiped Out’: New Yorkers Preyed on Chicago Cabbies" https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/nyregion/taxi-medallions-chicago.html
    13-2019-ChiTaxi-2943.JPG
  • Chicago taxis drive through rush hour traffic in downtown Chicago.<br />
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Chicago taxi medallions, now worth about $25,000, were once valued at nearly $400,000. The market's crash and predatory loans caused many medallion owners to declare bankruptcy in a situation made worse by the introduction of ride share apps like Lyft and Uber to the market.<br />
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For the New York Times "‘We Were Wiped Out’: New Yorkers Preyed on Chicago Cabbies" https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/nyregion/taxi-medallions-chicago.html
    13-2019-ChiTaxi-3932.JPG
  • Linda Emerick, of Parkton, Maryland, holds a copy of the Constitution, which she always carries with her, during a demonstration outside of the Capitol. Emerick, who was in town as a tourist, said, “I didn’t have a protest poster. I felt this was the next best thing.”<br />
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Demonstrators gather on the Capitol lawn as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on two articles of impeachment on Wednesday, December 18, 2019.<br />
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For the New York Times A President Impeached, and a Nation Convulsed https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/18/us/politics/president-impeachment-history.html
    13-2019-SchImpeach-3970.JPG
  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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A cat named Zoe perches on Eva Morales's window, which is less than ten feet from Westway Feed Products structures. Morales moved to the Manchester community in the second grade and raised her children there.<br />
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Manchester is a small and impoverished community in southeastern Houston, which does not have zoning laws. The homes are nestled between the Houston Ship Channel and several sprawling industrial facilities, including the Valero Houston Refinery, Westway Feed Products and Texas Port Recycling. The Environmental Protection Agency has identified dangerous levels of pollution in the Manchester air.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
    13-Manchester-9184.JPG
  • A car passes near Sole Choice Inc., one of the largest manufacturers of shoelaces in the world, and the last remnant of the shoe industry, which bolstered Portsmouth's economy through much of the 20th century.<br />
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Alan Lemons, the Scioto County Juvenile Court judge, said he has often been forced to send his staff to rescue children from unsafe homes. But he said that the agency has repeatedly complained to county prosecutors about the court’s efforts, and has rebuffed his requests to work together to save children from harm. “I’m trying to do everything within my power to help and I’m not seeing them do it,” Mr. Lemons said.<br />
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For the New York Times 'The Parents Passed a Drug Test. Should They Get Their Children Back?' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/us/opioids-foster-care-ohio.html
    14-2019-SciotoCo-9202.JPG
  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Dressed in his Easter Sunday best, Omarion Johnson, 12, holds hands with his great grandmother Katrina Jiles and Edward Crisp, a mentor, during service at Antioch Baptist in East Chicago, Indiana. The community recently learned of lead poisoning in its water and soil.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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Vi Lane reaches out to her great-grandson Thomas Brown as they drive through Platte City, Missouri. Lane lost her family's four businesses after the death of her husband 22 years ago. Her granddaugther, Thomas's mother, recently moved in with her after learning she is pregnant with her second child. The two work together to support the family, but living and medical expenses make their future uncertain.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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  • "America in the Middle" is a collection of images showing communities and individuals personally affected by policies but often-overlooked by politicians. |||<br />
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With low milk prices and a flooded market, the Huwer-Grube dairyfarm, owned and operated by Charles and Karen Grube, is losing money. The land has been in the family for five generations, but the Grubes are overleveraged and unable to pay the bills necessary to stay in operation.<br />
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Chicago Freelance Photographer | Alyssa Schukar | Photojournalist
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