American Apartheid

• Photographer
  Richard Street, United States
• Category
  Americas
• Studio
  Streetshots
• Image Location
  USA
• Website
  https://www.streetshots.org

These images are the concluding chapter in a modern visual history of farm labor in California since 1975. They attack the immense advertising system’s facade by reconstructing varieties of labor in the fields. My goal is to underscore the extent to which fruit and vegetable production rests on a class of landless peasants (although we never reefer to them with such charged terms) and an American variant of apartheid.

I am a bilingual, academically-trained historian/photojournalist (Ph. D. Wisconsin), author of a multi-volume scholarly history of California farmworkers. I founded my own business, Streetshots agricultural photography. For 30 years I worked as an agricultural photographer/journalist, defined broadly, in order to remain submerged in the industry that is the setting for my field of expertise.

Awards Maine Media Award for Photojournalism
Howard Chapnick Award for Photojournalism
Mark Lynton History Award
Best Agricultural Reporting In California
Guggenheim Fellowship