For the light you shine on others...

My friend Alberto Moreno, himself a poet as well as prose writer, posted this beautiful statement on Facebook today, with a photo of himself depositing his ballot. I’m going to paste it in here because I think it is so powerful:

When I was 9 I was “Illegal.” So I was told. This condition lasted until I was 19 when the Amnesty Act of 1986 was signed into law by Reagan. I remember one of the preconditions of allowing me to stay was that I had to register with the Selective Service and be willing to fight in a war on behalf of my new country. The irony was that I was expected to fight for and defend Americans’ rights and freedoms, but I was not myself permitted to vote. 

This lasted for 44 years until today when I was able to finally cast my first vote in 54 years. 
My vote today is for every undocumented worker
My vote today is for every child languishing in a cage wrought with hate and fear 
My vote today is for Black and Brown lives
For our LGBTQ friends 
My vote today is for every Synagogue
For every Mosque
For every farmworker
For every woman who has ever been raped or groped by an over entitled frat boy
For every woman suffering-from PTSD
My vote today is for the thousands of Central American and Mexican women victimized in the fields and in the hotels as they make your comfortable beds
My vote today is for our sons and daughters 
My vote today is a vote against hate
But most of all, 
My vote today is for a better and more loving America!

I shared that statement and he wrote back, “Thank you for all you have done. For the light you shine on others.” 

Suddenly I thought yes, that’s it, isn’t it? The light we shine on others. What greater assignment could any of us have? I’ll take that home with me. 

And one more thing. My respected teacher (though she doesn’t know she is my teacher) Beth Nakamura has been honored by a nine-minute documentary about justice, photography, and her work in Portland. We have been seeing each other at protests over the past ten years, waving to each other, chatting a little between shots when we were near each other. Whenever I see her, I note what and how she is shooting: where the light is, in relation to her camera; where the “action” is, where the action-seeking photojournalists are concentrated (and that she is not among them). I have great admiration for her, for her work, and for her vision of justice. All of you who take both photography and justice seriously, you might want to see this.