A Rare Photo of a Rarely Photographed Crisis
It’s hard to describe the thought process that ensues when you first look at a photograph of two dead bodies—one of a man and one of a small child clinging to him—floating in the shallow water near a riverbank. Partly because the process of making sense of it is just so fast; the tragedy that has occurred is communicated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, immediately.
A photograph that has been circulating virally online (and that framed the discussion of immigration onstage at the first Democratic presidential debate), credited to Julia De Luc and published by the Mexican newspaper , depicts the bodies of a Salvadoran migrant father and his daughter who drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande, reportedly after receiving the news that his family would be unable to present themselves to United States authorities and request asylum. (Due to concerns.) The daughter was a month shy of her second birthday. Her mother, who survived, is depicted in another image De Luc captured, standing on the shore and gesturing toward the water. The horror, again, is instantly recognizable.
