Foreword by Anna Deavere Smith
Faces of America: Getting By in Our Economy
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Dorothea Lange鈥檚 鈥淢igrant Mother,鈥 Gordon Parks鈥檚 鈥淎merican Gothic,鈥 and Walker Evans鈥檚 鈥淩oadside Stand near Birmingham, Alabama鈥 are photographs that not only chronicled American life鈥攖hey helped define it. Commissioned by the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to capture America during the Depression years, these images of the 1930s and 1940s are now as much a part of our national identity as speeches, historical accounts, and holidays. Many of the photographs looked race and class disparity in the face. Some were critiques. They remain relevant to contemporary disparities. Sometimes the stories they capture are harsh, but you can鈥檛 look away from them. They hang in museums all over the world. They auction for high sums.
The 亚色影库app鈥 decision to use pictures and documented words to animate the findings of its Commission on Reimagining Our Economy was an inspired one. Data is a necessary component of credibility and the food for lunchtime conversations in think tanks鈥攂ut how often does it reach beyond the inner circle of those 鈥渋n the know鈥? It is my hope that Faces of America: Getting By in Our Economy, though intended for a curated audience, will make its way to churches, YMCAs, locker rooms of high school football teams, colleges, and onto the pages of middle school essays.
The images are intriguing, often beautiful. Even though the sentiments evoked by the images and words throughout the book are not America the beautiful for spacious skies, viewers will find themselves engaged page after page. Beauty makes us sit up and take notice. The photographs, along with quotations from their subjects and excerpts from the Commission鈥檚 conversations with Americans at listening sessions across the country, tell the stories of those who are trying to 鈥渕ake it in America,鈥 often without the supports they need: sufficient education, health care, a good night鈥檚 sleep.
It shouldn鈥檛 be so hard to make it. And that鈥檚 why we need imagination in addition to the evidence that data provides.
Even when you do think you鈥檙e doing right, you go get a job, and you鈥檙e trying to take care of your bills and everything. And then it鈥檚 always something that jumps in the way. . . . It鈥檚 just hard. I just feel like they don鈥檛 give you a chance out here.
Who or what is 鈥渢hey鈥? The government? The people who 鈥渞un鈥 things? Those who dominate in the marketplace? Those in the know? In 1975, economist Arthur Okun wrote, 鈥渢he market has a place, and the market needs to be kept in its place.鈥 Researchers usefully posit that the health of the American political economy requires three strong elements: markets, government, and a civil society. They say that the current outsized market has made this arrangement lopsided, and it threatens to be untenable for many.
I can work, struggle and do what I got to do every day, and as soon as I鈥檝e done a whole lot and I get a little comfortable, there comes something else, boom, knock me right down.
Individuals do not feel secure or safe. They imagine that others do:
I mean, when we look at the wealthiest in American society, it鈥檚 not that they have some intrinsic component to who they are that allows them to succeed. It鈥檚 the fact that they can fail and still continue to survive and try other initiatives.
And what does working like a dog do to a civil society? Is it conducive to participation in democracy? One man works sixteen hours a day in a bakery. What time would he have to answer the call of a political organizer, for example? When could he volunteer to coach a soccer team, to create belongingness for himself and others? Does he have time to vote? To register to vote? Another in a listening session said:
I work hard. . . . My family life important for me. I sleep only four hour. That is important. I have no community life.
The simplicity of needs as they are chronicled here is remarkable. There鈥檚 a photograph of a man sitting at the bottom of a stairway in his Houston apartment complex with his no-doubt trustworthy companion, a stocky dog. He has no sidewalks.
Although I moved out of [Houston鈥檚] Third Ward from that apartment that was like an asphalt jungle, and now I live in a place that has more greenery and I can walk my dog, there鈥檚 no neighborhood surrounding. So I can go walk around the parking lot, but I can鈥檛 walk around my neighborhood. There are no sidewalks around the outside of my complex. And my friends who can afford to buy houses and live in neighborhoods鈥攐f course they have all that.
He just needs . . . a neighborhood.
One photograph stands out because unlike the others, it includes no faces (see page 96). It鈥檚 a large indoor space鈥攂ig windows, perfect light, a few buckets and some stools. At first, I thought it was an artist鈥檚 studio. It鈥檚 big enough for several artists. It was once a rubber factory, then a pajama factory in Pennsylvania; it is now the unfinished floor of what will be a 鈥渕ixed-use space.鈥 Wouldn鈥檛 it be wonderful if the mix were of different representatives of the community across race and class, reimagining our economy? Faces of America: Getting By in Our Economy was inspired by remnants of the past, the FSA photographs made by the likes of Parks, Lange, and Evans. It makes me think that the task of reimagining our economy is like a big room, once a factory, now a place to be creative. The very use of the word reimagine is inviting. It鈥檚 welcoming. It鈥檚 hospitable. The empty space with remnants of the past is hopeful.
Anna Deavere Smith is a writer and actress. She is credited with having created a new form of theater. Her plays, sometimes called 鈥渄ocudramas,鈥 focus on contemporary issues from multiple points of view and are composed from excerpts of hundreds of interviews. Her plays, and films based on them, include Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, both of which deal with volatile race events in the 1990s; Let Me Down Easy, about the U.S. health care system; and Notes from the Field, which focuses on the school-to-prison pipeline. Her work as an actress on television includes Inventing Anna, The West Wing, Nurse Jackie, and Black-ish; and in mainstream movies includes Philadelphia, The American President, and Rachel Getting Married. She is a University Professor at New York University鈥檚 Tisch School of the Arts. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy in 2019. In 2023, President Biden appointed her to the President鈥檚 Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.