Ruthie Abel “Let It Be The Dream It Used To Be”

Anastasia Photo

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Anastasia Photo presents Let It Be The Dream It Used To Be, Ruthie Abel’s first exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition documents children who arrived alone in the United States seeking refuge. Its title references Langston Hughes’ Let America Be America Again, the writer’s 1935 poem that challenges our conception of the American Dream.

Over 30,000 children currently face complex deportation proceedings without legal counsel. Most come from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, countries with the highest murder rates in the world. These children face deadly violence if deported, and thus have strong legal cases for immigration relief. However, these children are alone and unrepresented. In immigration court, the Department of Homeland Security is represented by highly trained attorneys who will argue for their removal. Without counsel, their chance of avoiding deportation is less than 10%. With legal counsel, their chance is 86%.

Let It Be The Dream documents children who, through an extraordinary network of pro bono legal service providers, have won the right to stay in America. Two bodies of work are on view. Place provides a portrait of the children in their homes and environments. Moment documents images that the children made themselves. Abel’s collaboration allows us to see the children on both sides of the lens, as subject and as narrator of their own stories.