Abstract
Mr. President. A bulletin board honoring Barack Obama, the United States’ first African American president, in Paul Robeson High School, located in Englewood on Chicago’s South Side. The neighborhood is one of the poorest and most dangerous in the city. Less than half of black male students graduate from high school. Photograph by Carlos Javier Oritz © 2009
R.I.P. Memorial for Jovany Diaz, who was celebrating his 15th birthday when he was shot and killed in West Humboldt Park, on the West Side of Chicago. Home to many Puerto Ricans during the late twentieth century, the neighborhood has seen an influx of African Americans and Mexicans and has recently been undergoing gentrification. Photograph by Carlos Javier Oritz © 2011
Students at Paul Robeson High School in Englewood, Chicago, became antsy after almost a month of having a substitute teacher. Photograph by Carlos Javier Oritz © 2009
A young couple with their child. Greater Grand Crossing, on Chicago’s South Side, is an impoverished neighborhood with relatively high rates of homicide and robbery. Young people growing up there often witness horrific acts of violence. Photograph by Carlos Javier Oritz © 2009
Desk in a classroom in the state-run St. Charles juvenile detention facility west of Chicago. Half of the high school–aged kids who are locked up there are not taking classes full time because there are not enough teachers. They are often harassed by the guards; in 2016, four prison guards there were charged with misconduct toward detainees, including using violence to discipline incarcerated youth and fomenting fights among them. Photograph by Carlos Javier Ortiz © 2010