Melissa Hess ’05, studio art
This photo is one of my favorites from a recent personal project called “inVISIBLE Americans: Making immigrants visible—in a new light—through their own words.” The project features portraits of immigrants in the Lancaster community and their first-person stories. I have been honored to have the opportunity to meet and photograph more than 60 people from all over the world through this collaboration organized by local nonprofit Church World Service-Lancaster.
Through one of my courses at Messiah where we taught English to immigrants and newly arrived refugees, I came to care deeply about the issues they face. My first job as a professional photographer for nonprofit Mennonite Central Committee took me to 26 developing countries around the world where I met many incredible, welcoming, resilient people, despite their hardships. Those four years of taking short-term trips led me to spend a year of my life in Nicaragua where I learned what it is like to be vulnerable—to not fully know the language, to be fully immersed in a foreign culture—and, most importantly, where I built trusting, lasting friendships.
Being the photographer behind the inVISIBLE Americans project has completed a dream of mine. My hope is that these photos and stories help viewers to connect with and relate to immigrants on a personal, everyday level and see them as the unique individuals that they are. I love this photo of Touna from Sudan because she looks so hopeful, bold, beautiful and strong.