In the wake of Hurricane-Ida, it was Latin American immigrant workers who were everywhere on rooftops across New Orleans--repairing the many damaged roofs.
I did not have to go far to document my immigrant people doing the arduous work after another hurricane left dramatic damage in the Crescent City.
On my block alone on Saint Roch Avenue, there were reconstruction crews repairing the many blown roofs of my neighbor's houses.
There were crews of Guatemalan, Honduran, and Mexican roofers on my Saint Roch Avenue street. I took my camera around my neighborhood and the nearby Treme to capture the images of many of our Latin American immigrant workers. They were often repairing damaged roofs at high altitudes, and without any safety scaffolding provided to them by the contractors that hired them.
Again, like post-Katrina, our people were engaging in the reconstruction efforts, and doing so at the risk of their lives.
This new series of photos were captured in the immediate September 2021 days after the electricity was restored in New Orleans post-Ida, and immigrant workers covered the many roofs across the city like a locust of reconstruction angels.
I am grateful to be participating in PhotoNOLA 2022, and this marks the 10th year in a row I have participated in exhibiting photos of immigrant reconstruction workers since 2011.
I concentrate my photographic lens on the forgotten Latin American immigrants that continuously rebuild New Orleans after each hurricane since Katrina. --JTT
Below are images of an article on my first photo exhibition back in December of 2012, and this was the "cover feature" in The Advocate Newspaper for the arts section called "Beaucoup," and written by Dean Shapiro.