Dusty work boots up and down concrete floors laid by black and brown men centuries before

movies were silent pictures of damsels in distress and villains from foreign lands; histories of

celluloid dreams built on backs of barely paid laborers living far from the bright lights, cameras,

and influences of manicured tree lined streets where kids rode bikes along white picket fences.

Removed from Spielberg, Reiner, and Hughes inciting suburbia confinement paraded as

rebellion by kids from loving two parent households and sitcom moms who stayed home while

dads worked and had secret affairs with big boobed secretaries. Techno cranes and dollies

positioned plastic bushes and fake phone booths to blur backgrounds, not to detract from the

famous faces in the foreground speeding through dialogue as if people talked in a manner far

removed from Malibu, meant to look like Maine. Million-dollar mansions overlooking oceans,

where movie stars retreat from public eyes, encouraging paparazzi gossip and telling half storied

truths through wide-angle lensed fiction; left off screen, behind the scenes accounts of exploits

and childhoods in East LA, Mesoamerican folklores, and African fairytales reshaped for

unpigmented mass consumption on modern day micro-budgets.

Christina Jurado (she/her) identifies as a second gen Chicana/Mexicana/Americana. Her favorite story to tell is how she was born two months early when her Bisabuela touched her mother’s stomach and said, “this child will be born tomorrow” and she was. Christina calls both DC and LA home, splitting her time between both coasts.

About the Artist

Najib Joe Hakim is a working documentary photographer, artist and photography instructor. Hakim also serves as the President of the Board for the Network of Photographers for Palestine and is a founding member of Class Conscious Photographers. He is the recipient of the Rebuilding Alliance Storytellers Award for a trilogy of projects on Palestine; a Political Art Fellow at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; and a past nominee for the US Artist Fellowship.

His books are available at: < https://bit.ly/MagCloudBookCollection >.