Viewers interpretations can be explored and studied but are not easily controlled. To enable panelists to address these questions, photo submissions along with accession notes and comments were made available for analysis and slide showing. For my own presentation, I selected 25 photos. There were interesting ordinary human images such as that of the Iraqi grandmother on floor rolling cigarettes for living dated 1975, and a portrait of Iraqi grandfather dressed in traditional clothes in Baghdad dated 1948. An Israeli photo that stood out in symbolism and uniqueness among ethnic submissions was a snapshot of an Israeli soldier standing side by side with a Hasidic man on top of a military tank in Israel following the 1967 war.
Submissions tell a story.
Often, however, what is not submitted is more telling. For example, there were no photos showing children taken to foster homes, battered or abandoned women in shelters, AIDS victims, the homeless or unemployed, or the Arab man making a living at the gas pump. What we have in the archives mostly reflects a distilled picture without blemishesan idealized community full of dreams, hopes, aspirations, accomplishments, history, art. Others projected dreams and hopes in the new homeland. Most portraits reflect pride and memory from the homeland.