Written by Darriel McBride Growing up as a bi-racial woman, during the early 2000s to present, has come with its own set of challenges. Despite growing up in New York, one of the most diverse cities in the world, I was born into a mixed family and culture that struggles with anti-Blackness. While being half […]
“Behind all your stories is your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begins.” -Mitch Albom Story submitted by Chrislyn Choo My dad is the jolliest, most generous man I know. I like to think I got my love for storytelling from him. A small island boy from Malaysia, he inhales curry for breakfast and […]
The story below has been shared with Family Pictures USA by Guenevere Crum. Her journey to find her family history led her through libraries, across the country, and over the Atlantic to track down photos and family members. Her efforts spanning decades, we present to you a snippet of her findings: Four images hanging on […]
The story below has been shared with Family Pictures USA by Bill Doggett about the path his parents took to resist the unjust practices of a pre-Civil Rights era America in southern California. “It is often said in ancestral black family circles, that ‘God does not bring us this far to leave us.’”– Frances Clarke Doggett Filmmaker Bill […]
Thomas and Ana Flávia in front of the library on the Federal University of Brasilia Campus Last month I went to Brazil to keynote the opening of the “Plural Knowledge: The Social Relevance of the Public University” Conference at the Federal University of Brasilia, as well as to conduct a two day Family Pictures Community […]
By Barbara Tyner Hall Florida’s southwestern coast is made up of a group of mangrove keys known as the Ten Thousand Islands. Chokoloskee Island and Everglades City are located eighty miles west of Miami just off of the Tamiami Trail This is the western gateway to the Everglades National Park. Chokoloskee is one of the […]
Written by Darriel McBride With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it’s an opportunity for us to not only be thankful for the food we eat, but our families as we celebrate with one another. Growing up on a farm, in North Carolina, has taught the Starling family the importance of knowing exactly where their food […]
Written by Darriel McBride Every year, International Men’s Day is commemorated on November 19th to celebrate the positive that value men bring to the world, their families, and their communities. One of our very own Family Pictures USA participants, Leonardo Gonzalez, is quite literally the embodiment of a man who has brought significant positivity and […]
Written by Darriel McBride Today, according to the most recent statistics from the US Census, there are roughly 20.4 million veterans in the United States, yet among those who have served, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 40,056 veterans are homeless on any given night. Gulf War veterans face unrelenting barriers […]
Written for Family Pictures USA by Darriel McBride Halloween is perhaps a child’s second favorite holiday next to Christmas. Although, some would argue that you can’t eat your toys, so where’s the fun in that? Growing up, Halloween was like no other holiday. My mother allowed my siblings and I to stay up late after […]
Written by Darriel McBride for Family Pictures USA Despite the fact that we may love our families, there are things each of us carry in our hearts that may be difficult to share with our loved ones. For LGBT+ folks, opening up to family about their sexuality can be the most difficult thing to share. […]
Viktor holds a photo of his family. During his time as a visiting professor at Dartmouth College – back in 2016 – Thomas had the opportunity to meet artist Viktor Witkowski and professor Katie Hornstein over dinner. Both brought family photos to share that night for an impromptu photo share session. Katie had a print […]
Written by Darriel McBride for Family Pictures USA For many members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community, National Coming Out Day is the perfect time to celebrate their own stories while raising awareness about the LGBTQ+ experience. Proclaiming one’s identity is a deeply personal and often challenging experience for LGBTQ+ individuals. Regardless […]
By Eric K. Washington James H. Williams, Otto Sarony Studio, ca. 1905. Courtesy Charles Ford Williams Family Archives “At the Grand Central station is a colored man who probably knows more people than any other Negro in New York,” a front page lede in the New York Age read in 1923. “He is Chief James H. Williams, head of the […]
By John D. Sutter There’s a simple problem at the heart of the climate crisis: We don’t live long enough to really feel it. Academics call this “generational amnesia” or “shifting baseline syndrome.” The Earth operates on a timeframe of centuries and millennia. We humans are here for just a few decades. That makes it […]
By Evan Trine I’ve been working on this body of work for the last year or so. It developed slowly after stripping down previous bodies of work until I realized that the source imagery I’d been using was actually the most interesting, valuable part of my process. I haven’t completely landed on the language around […]
Zulaika Quintero, Jose Quintero and Elva Quintero We had the opportunity to meet Zulaika Quintero through our photo-share in Southwest Florida. As the principal of a local public charter school, she has tailored the school’s curriculum to meet the needs of the children in her community. “Everything is taught in both languages and that enables […]
Thomas recently connected with Rodney Freeman, creator of the platform Black Male Archives via Linked In. Intrigued by his work, we invited Rodney to share more some of his personal family archives and tell us about his history with photo preservation. I’m a librarian with a passion for saving/preserving pictures. I’ve been a librarian for […]
That curly hair. Where did it come from? Our oldest son, Max, started showing signs of curly hair as an infant. My wife Sarah has straight hair, and I have medium-ish wavy hair. But my father, well that dude had some serious curls back in the day. So we started looking for old photos of […]
If we look closely, we can see traces of our ancestors in our faces, our personalities, our genes. Our relatives, the people in their lives, and their circumstances became embedded in their bodies, shaping the way they moved and thought and lived. They then passed some of those things on to us, just as their […]
