Camilo José Vergara has spent nearly four decades documenting the structural violence of poor and minority neighborhoods in major cities across the U.S. What he has seen is a fortification of these areas in a physical sense. The buildings have sprouted steel gates, razor wire, barred windows, and other forms of defense. But do these environmental features really serve to protect people? Vergara argues that these only further the problems in these communities. These features separate people and foster an environment of suspicion. People's homes and businesses come to resemble prisons more than neighborhoods. It puts people on the defense, but they are defending against each other instead of being a united community. Interpersonal violence is a direct result of these fortifications, which are seen as necessary. Yet, in documenting Harlem in New York City, he has seen a reversal of these installations, and he has seen the area begin to turn back into a safe, functioning community of people working together instead of against each other.
Vergara wrote a short article in 1996 called “Our Fortified Ghettos” in which he tells the story of seven children who died in a house fire. In Detroit there stood an old farmhouse which had been refurbished into a home. This house was fortified with gates on the windows, so that no criminals could get in. But the purpose that those bars ultimately served was to trap the children in a fiery prison which sent them to their early deaths.
Vergara's Photography: http://invinciblecities.camden.rutgers.edu/intro.html
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