8FORTY6
When I was eight, my mother and I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, fleeing the ongoing conflict from the US-backed counterrevolution in Nicaragua. I quickly learned what it meant to be an "other." In the years to come, I had to become intimate with the history of inequality, oppression, and violence against black, Indigenous, and people of color in the United States of America.
When the protests erupted in Oakland on May 29, 2020, in response to the murder of George Floyd, I felt a deep urgency to be in the streets. In the subsequent days, weeks, and months, I immersed myself in documenting the historic multigenerational, multi-ethnic demonstrations of resistance and dissatisfaction with the status quo in this country.
The title, 8FORTY6, refers to the eight minutes and forty-six seconds that Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd's neck, resulting in Floyd's death on May 25, 2020.
