Our worlds are formed by the complex web of memories, stories and experience that belong to each individual and each family. In our communities these diverse backgrounds and histories come together, forming a collective narrative within which we can see the grains of individual experience, individual stories.

Those grains, reflected in the grains of the photographs captured by immigrant and refugee youth, reflect rituals from across the globe, traditions nurtured over many years, and stories of separation, resiliency, and survival. We see these grains revealed in the colors, shades, and compositions of the photographs.

Beyond those histories, these images also capture the realities of life, both here in Southeastern San Diego, and around the world: political struggles, the effects of forced migration, economic disparities, gang violence, and urban growth and change. At the same time, they reflect commonalities that bind us all: grief, joy, friends, families, and the million details that shape our lives.

The AjA Project works with immigrant and refugee youth, giving them the tools to capture those grains through the power of photography. Only by seeing these differences and these commonalities at once can we see how those small details are ingrained in the larger context of our lives and our world.