The New Yorker focuses on the faces of Lynn

LYNN – The photo records just an instant, but for Lynners whose images appeared in The New Yorker magazine as part of a multimedia project on local immigrants, the photos represent much, much more.”When I was told that (the journalist) was going to do the interview, I found it very interesting because it made me think it was a picture of my whole life,” Jose Encarnación, 51, said Monday. “It made me feel proud, not only of myself but of my whole extended family … thinking about all the sacrifices that my mother and father made.”Andrea Patiño is a native of Bogota, Colombia, and came to the United States at age 19 to attend Duke University. Following her graduation from Duke with a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology and a certificate in policy journalism, Patiño won a Lewis Hine Fellowship, a 10-month program where fellows work as full-time staff with a host organization and produce a documentary project.Patiño selected Raw Art Works as her host organization, arriving here in fall 2012.”What I found most fascinating about Lynn is its diversity,” Patiño said in an email message. “I had read about the city before going there, of course, but unfortunately a lot of the things I had encountered had to do with Lynn’s infamous reputation. Being in the city though, I quickly realized how diverse the city was – just by walking around and hearing different languages across the city? Finding out that 28% of Lynn’s population is foreign-born really blew my mind.”In addition to many projects for RAW, Patiño completed a documentary project entitled “From the World to Lynn, Stories of Immigration.” Patiño photographed and recorded audio interviews with several Lynners who were impacted by immigration – either as immigrants or refugees themselves, or as relatives of immigrants and refugees.The project is being displayed at Duke this month and was featured in the Photo Booth section of the Dec. 2 edition of The New Yorker.”It was completely unexpected and it all happened really quickly,” Patiño said of The New Yorker feature – adding that she learned her photographs would be featured just the day before the story appeared. “It was a mixture of feeling confused, nervous and excited at the same time.”The article was also a surprise for Jose De Leon, 17, a RAW Chief, or youth mentor at the arts organization.”Everybody in school congratulated me, and I was like, ?what are you talking about?'” De Leon said.De Leon told Patiño about his mother, who was pregnant with his older brother when she left Guatemala to cross into California. De Leon also spoke about his grandmother, whom he was supposed to meet for the first time in 2011 after the two became best friends over years of phone calls and Skype. De Leon’s grandmother died before De Leon’s passport arrived for his planned trip to meet her. In De Leon’s photo, he peers at the camera from behind glasses that reflect a face (his face? Patiño’s?, his mother’s? grandmother’s? ) in the light.”I told my mom and she called all my relatives in Guatemala (when the article came out) and they were all celebrating for me,” De Leon said. “My grandma was known as the heart of the family, so they were all celebrating.”Masiel Encarnación, 25, and Project Launch Director at RAW, was interviewed for Patiño’s project on past and present RAW Chiefs. She told Patiño about her father, Jose Encarnación, and his family of 15’s journey from the Dominican Republic. Patiño selected Jose Encarnación to interview for her Faces of Lynn project.”I learned there was a lot I did not know,” Masiel Encarnación said of her father’s story. “I knew he had sold fruit and was a shoe shiner … but I didn’t know it was such a sentimental thing. He met people who we are still friends with today.”Masiel Encarnación also loves her father’s photo – especially since his clothes iron is in the background.”He will not leave the house without his shirts ironed every day,” Masiel Encarnación said. “So I thought it was a good contrast; he