From the streets of Buenos Aires.

• Author: Kiernan, James Patrick
• Position: Outlook

Daniel Cima, an Argentine photographer who resides in Washington, has spent the past eighteen years photographing around the world, principally for the Red Cross. Last August, he returned to Buenos Aires to visit his family, as well as to document what was happening in his hometown, which has been stricken by a prolonged financial crisis. What Cima recorded, and what is presented in this photo essay, is the condition of two principal groups: people protesting the closed banks, most of which have been shut for an extended period, and the crowds of people living in the streets, under bridges, aqueducts, and in front of the presidential palace, and feeding theft families at soup kitchens and from what food could be picked from the trash. Cima sighed sadly as he showed his photographs, "This is not the Argentina I remember."

Cima noted the "sadness, mistrust, and constant tension in the streets, especially among those protesting the closed banks." While some of the protesters were young adults who were presenting political positions, the median age of the protesters was fifty-five, the photographer surmised, many of them elderly who had lost their life savings. They simply wanted their money. Many in the crowds living on the streets were from the provinces of Argentina, who had come to the capital to find work, only to find, as a result of the severely contracting national economy, unemployment...