Jon Lowenstein

Jon Lowenstein will partner with the Trans-Border Institute , part of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego, to provide local faith leaders and religious youth groups in Escondido, California with tools to mediate escalating tensions between new migrant and native-born communities. For this project, Escondido en Escondido, experts from both partner organizations will conduct a workshop with religious leaders about issues surrounding immigration with the goal of fostering community integration and cooperation. Lowenstein will run a photography workshop with religious leaders and local youth using images from his book, Shadow Lives USA, as a way to spur dialogue around the immigrant experience and talk about the dangers of border crossings, living undocumented in the United States, and deportation, among other issues. Participants will then interview and photograph one another and Lowenstein will publish the resulting work in newspaper format, which will be distributed by those involved to the rest of their larger communities. In conjunction with the newspaper, Lowenstein will utilize the augmented reality browser Junaio to allow readers to use their smart phones to access additional images and information about the project. Lowenstein and his partners will share their project’s outcomes with local political leaders as an example of how to address immigration stereotypes by mediating and creating connections between various groups within the Escondido community.