Their jobs often make them feel invisible. They are the low-wage workers who make our clothes, look
after our children, and open our doors -- the millions of people who form the fabric of our society.
Theirs is a world rarely seen.
In unseenamerica, a program created by Esther Cohen, hundreds of workers were given cameras and
lessons in photography, and then asked to document their lives. Through this collection of black-and-white
images -- sometimes bleak, sometimes poignant, and always honest -- the workers give voice to their stories.
"A lot of people assume you are what your job is, taking out garbage or fixing plumbing," says
Sam Contreras, a building maintenance worker and participant in the program. "They don't realize that
there's an artful soul to everybody."
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Esther Cohen is the executive director of Bread and Roses, the nonprofit cultural arm of Local 1199
of the Service Employees International Union, the largest and fastest growing union in the United
States, representing 1.8 million low-wage workers. Bread and Roses is the country's premier
working people's cultural program. unseenamerica has been featured in the New York Times,
Washington Post, and Fast Company, on World News Tonight and NPR, and in many other media outlets.
Cohen writes fiction and poetry and lives in New York City.