Credits:

Filmed, produced, and edited by Mark Abramson

Music courtesy of Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo`ole

Digital Graffiti hits Atlanta’s 2012 Flux Festival

Digital Graffiti by Jacob Abramson and Suzette Guy. For more Digital Graffiti videos: http://www.dg-nyc.com/

Mark Abramson – Dir. of Photography
Anthony Hendrickson – Associate Production
Njea Pierre-Production Assistant

The Little Freedom Church – Saint James AME Zion Church from Mark Abramson on Vimeo.

A short trailer for a film about Saint James AME Zion Church, located in Beacon, NY, for the Black Heritage Network (BHN).

Producer/Director: Lori Grinker
Co-Cinematographers: Lori Grinker and Mark Abramson
Still photography: Lori Grinker
Editor: Mark Abramson

Alexis Glenn was in her second day of photojournalism classes when she shot the burning Pentagon. Ten years later she’s now a photographer at George Mason University.

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Dave Curtis, of Falls Church, Va., dropped out of Radford U., joined the army, and was wounded in Iraq. He now studies at Northern Virginia Community College.

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Chaplain Sanaa Nadim counsels—and advocates for—the Muslim community of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She also works off campus on various interfaith projects.

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Terri Tobin, an officer with the New York Police Department, survived the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. She now shares her perspective with students at Molloy College.

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Currently, approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants live within the United States borders. Of those 11 million, approximately 1.6 million of them are so called “DREAMers”; youth brought over to the U.S by their parents, searching for a better life, at a young age at no fault of their own, and who currently reside, work, and exist within our society. They are American in every sense of the word, but live without the security of having proper documentation to be able to function as full members of society.

The Dream Act would provide a passageway to citizenship for many undocumented youth who call the United States their home. Many of these undocumented students have lived in the U.S since an early age, but cannot attend college or receive financial aid to attend a higher education institution due to lack of papers and a social security number. Many must resort to living like second-class members of our society. From an early age they have lived under the idea that if you work hard you will then benefit the full rewards that the United States has to offer, only to find out that they cannot.

This year with the possibility of a comprehensive overhaul of our nation’s broken immigration system looming in the air, the debate has become even more heated. While border security, guest worker programs, and many other issues are being debated within the overhaul issue, the inclusion of DREAMers remains to be an important element of the entire overhaul. In the summer of 2011 President Barack Obama signed an executive order know as “Deferred Action” to provide a temporary solution for many of these youth DREAMers. While the solution helps temporarily, this year marks an even bigger moment with the possibility of passing sensitive and humane immigration reform in a nation that has always existed as a nation of immigrants.