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Documenting Obama

Rick Rocamora

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Documenting Obama
Rick Rocamora: 'It was a unique experience for many to claim that the 44th US president shares our values and experiences living in America'

As a person of color, I joined many who celebrated the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America in 2008.

As a documentary photographer, I took every opportunity I can get to document events before and after his election. I did it not because of a specific assignment but to bear witness to an unprecedented event for people of color in America where milestones are mostly about discrimination and life of inequality.

After the votes were counted and officially proclaimed the president-elect, Obama delivered his acceptance speech in a chilly night in Chicago, making the audience at Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, California shed tears when he said –

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

Celebration of Obama supporters after the election in Oakland, CA, November 2008.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.”

I was in Washington D.C. days before his inauguration to witness and experience the euphoric celebration of his election.

With my images and words, San Francisco Chronicle ran an op-ed article on how it feels to be a person of color when the unexpected became a reality – that a country still divided, confronting racism and discrimination daily elected someone with the color of my skin.

One of many who shed tears at the Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, CA while listening and watching President Obama’ s victory speech in Chicago being live streamed on giant screens, November 2008.

The 8 years of Barack Hussein Obama as President was not perfect by any measure, not because he neglected his promises but because all the forces who hated his election joined hands to stifle his every move.

In spite of the detrimental action to ruin his plans, experts who monitors presidential performance gives him a favorable mark for his accomplishments during a the worst economic period of US history which he inherited, and will finish his tenure without any scandal that every person of color can be proud.

It was a unique experience for many to claim that the 44th US president shares our values and experiences living in America.

By 12 noon on January 20th, it will be a different America and immigrants, women, people with disabilities, Muslim-Americans, and recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will link arms and brace for the onslaught of the unexpected. – Rappler.com

Portrait of President Barack Hussein Obama by Martin Schoeller at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. before the inauguration, January 2009.

Top photo: Display of front pages of selected newspapers announcing Obama’s victory at the Newseum in Washington D.C., November 2008.

All photos by Rick Rocamora.

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