@WorkingWOC: Toward a History of Women of Color in the Workplace (2022 - Ongoing)
“Black people have always been drivers of technologies and digital cultures.”
— Legacy Russell
About this Project
The @WorkingWOC digital photo archive was inspired by a family archive of photographs circa 1969 of my mother's early work experience as a new migrant to NYC. This project aims to recognize the contributions of Black and other immigrant women of color in the American workplace.
This work is still in progress as I weave together stories about the technology and clerical work performed by these women and the social mobility it afforded them and their families.
What you see here is a selection of the images in this project, please contact me to inquire about viewing more.
View related photo collage series, The Reinforcements (2023 - Ongoing).
2022 Magnum Foundation Counter Histories Grantee
In 2022 I was a Magnum Foundation grantee in their Counter Histories initiative supporting projects that creatively reframe the past to engage with urgent questions of the present and future.
Why, in the 21st century, do Black women continue to lack representation in leadership roles, receive minimal support for career advancement, face more day-to-day race and gender discrimination and consistently earn less than their non-Black coworkers?
Can historical photography (and the accompanying narratives) be used to understand Black women’s double-minority status in the workplace?
For the Counter Histories program, I developed an independent, digital archive that visualizes the labor history of Black and other (immigrant) women of color in America’s workplace focusing on the period in between the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the early 2000s.
To maximize reach and audience, this archive currently lives on the following social media platforms:
︎ Instagram @WorkingWOC
︎Pinterest
︎ YouTube
These accounts exist as an archive for my photo research that verifies and documents a historically invisible workforce. My focus on a late 20th century, post Feminism timeline is intentional as this was the period when women entered into office cultures en mass and the influx of migrant communities (specifically from the Caribbean and Latin America) also contributed to this new rise of corporate labor.
︎ SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS ︎
As a community-driven archive, I welcome submissions of women of color in the workplace from your own family archives - submit via email to workingwoc[at]gmail.com