Before European contact, millions of people with varied languages and cultures lived across present-day North America. Millions of people raising families, practicing religion and agriculture, coming together, living, dying… for generations.

Yet well into the 20th century, the scholars counting Indigenous people, many of them backed by the same government that took Native land, put that number at barely a million.

That number reinforced a story colonists had told from the start: a vast, empty land ripe for settling, a land of freedom and opportunity. As if to say, “No one was here anyway!”

It was perfect for Europeans escaping religious and political persecution. Or Europeans looking to expand or fill gaps in resources… or chasing curiosity… or growing their wealth. This narrative motivated the movement of people that eventually led to the foundation of the United States of America.

“Foundation” included displacement, massacres, and the religious, cultural, and political persecution of this land’s original custodians. The same tyranny the nation’s founding documents claimed to protect its citizens from. Select, homogeneous citizens.

The United States is a country founded by white colonists and their descendants. It was built by enslaved Africans brought by force, by people whose homelands it absorbed, and by immigrants from all over the world, recruited for their labor and often excluded or expelled by the same country they were building.

250 years later, that power structure has created a different narrative around the movement of people. It was fine when it was them, “founding.” It was fine when they were forcibly moving people. They were “building.”

It was fine when it was them, “founding.”

Today, they claim immigrants are criminals. That immigrants are taking jobs. That rents are high because of them. That health care and resources are being “stolen.” They’re implying that immigration is destroying the country. The problems underneath are real. People are hurting. Rents are high. Health care isn’t caring. The question is who gets blamed for them.

People who do more good than harm to this country are being demonized and attacked. My parents are being made into the enemy.

My parents came to this country at a young age. They work their asses off, pay their taxes, and raised a family that continues to do the same.

Yet for most of my life, I’ve heard politicians treat immigrants like a soccer ball, a political tool kicked back and forth. It’s felt like a constant struggle to prove that they belong here, in their own home.

The Real Portrait of America stems from admiration and frustration. Admiration for folks who give it their all and ask for nothing more than freedom and security. Frustration over rhetoric that demonizes them despite their contributions. It stems from a lifetime of sensational media and museum visits, wondering why people like my parents weren’t deemed worthy of the walls, constantly asking, “Where are our stories?”

While the art isn’t about me, that question evolved into, “Why not me?”

History often remembers figures of “great importance” through elegant portraits hung in gilded frames, including the portraits of U.S. presidents and founding fathers in the White House. These paintings overlook the everyday people who form society’s foundation.

So I put those people in the frame, literally and figuratively, to elevate the stories of U.S. immigrants. The portrait series captures these immigrants in their work uniforms, styled with the noble, idealized aesthetic of Baroque portraits and framed in gold, giving immigrant workers their rightful place in history.

The goal is to open a fair conversation about immigration. Because until immigrants, legal or not, are seen as human, and the facts lead the discussion, a productive conversation is impossible.

Immigration includes more people than most people picture, from every country, background, and line of work. I hang these portraits on walls, online and off, asking people to see them, and to see themselves in them.

The first edition of The Real Portrait of America focuses on immigrants in essential, often overlooked work. These portraits were made possible by Fujifilm and shot on the Fujifilm GFX system. Future editions will widen the frame to include the full range of people immigration brings to this country, across professions, origins, and backgrounds.