There is nothing particularly unique about the west side of Chicago. It’s not the poorest, the oldest, the largest, or the most African-American of African-American communities in the U.S.
In so many ways, the west side is typical. We know because sociologists tell us so. They have rates and percentages for measuring places like the west side: percentages of families living below the poverty line; rate of unemployment; rate of violent crime; percentage of teenage pregnancy etc. And, according to these metrics, the west side is just like every other swath of poverty in and around every single city in the U.S. Yet, we are led to believe that the only time these communities are in crisis is when something occurs that lands on a front page. The real crisis, however, is on-going and it’s one of acceptance – acceptance of the conditions, day in day out.
Yet, when Paul D’Amato is there, visiting someone he knows, or simply stopping someone he has never met, something besides a concern for poverty takes shape. It varies from picture to picture. It can be about a kind of grace or beauty; or perhaps it can be just about the opportunity to do something out of the ordinary—to pose for a picture, and help make something that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. When these subjects agree to be photographed, they stand for the best and only example of who they are. At that moment, they are the center of the universe, right here, holding still, right now. What follows - these photographs - won’t change these neighborhoods but each of these interactions and the pictures that are a consequence, can do something that statistics and sensational news stories can’t. They remind us that we are all connected, that the individuals in the images aren’t “they” or “them”, they are he and she and matter as much as any one of us.