First-year Journalism student Jesse Walter went to Detroit and New York with a friend around election time to do a photo reportage about hope and the future.
“My first impression of New York was that it was very big and busy. Nowhere else in the world do you see so many people from different cultures walking around. Detroit, on the other hand, was the opposite,” says Jesse. In 2013, Detroit was declared bankrupt as a city. “I wanted to see what the city was like now, but once I got there I was shocked: it was quiet, deserted, many shops were closed and there was hardly anyone walking the streets. Two-thirds of all residents have now left Detroit. I thought: ‘where did everyone go?’ I had never seen anything so strange.”
Kristin
Jesse has portrayed Americans and interviewed them about hopeful thoughts. What are the most special answers he has received? “Many people hope for world peace, and that we will look out for each other a bit more.
I also spoke to someone who really hoped for grandchildren, which I thought was really nice. On election day we came across a homeless person and we decided to give him some food. He thanked us kindly and said ‘Let’s hope Trump wins today.’ After it was announced that Trump had won the election, there were also people who hoped that Trump would fail miserably and that democracy would survive.
At Washington Square Park I met Kristin, a woman who was trying to sell buttons for Kamala Harris. But it was already clear that the Democrats were losing the election. She wanted to keep selling, but you could see her powerlessness, anger and disappointment. I tried to capture that in the photo I took of her. Kristin told me that she is now very afraid that America is going to become a fascist regime.
Democrats are leaving
Before his trip, Jesse expected a lot of commotion around the elections, from large-scale campaign events to massive demonstrations and protests. But there were none. “We followed the results on a TV screen in a bar where Democrats and Republicans watched together. Later in the evening, groups of Democrats did go home early. Among the guests, I overheard a conversation between two women – one for Trump, the other for Harris – who were discussing it with each other. The Trump supporter only mentioned as an argument that women do not need to work at all, while the Harris supporter mentioned all kinds of well-founded arguments about education and the climate. It sounded very clear to me that the Harris supporter won the discussion.
Too bad Kamala Harris herself did not win the election in the end. If Trump is inaugurated on January 20, I am a little afraid that the relationship between the Netherlands, Europe and the US will deteriorate somewhat and that American citizens will have somewhat less freedom.”
text: Reinhilde van Aalderen
photos: Jesse Walter
