El León Literary Arts: Glimpses of La Yaguita, Isaias Orozco-Lang

Isaias Orozco-Lang's photographic tour of the Dominican Republic community La Yaguita del Pastor is a window into the soul of a community that allows not just a voyeur's glimpse, but an entry into its mysteries.

Related Press: Orozco-Lang on
WYNYC Radio, New York City. Interview
with Leonard Leopate (April 2004)

Related Link: http://www.isaiasorozco-lang.net/

Critical Praise

These photographs are a real tool of reflection on a certain reality of the Dominican Republic. By his social choice, his nearness to the people, and the generosity of his images, this young man positions himself directly in the center of the politico-social debate through his documentary photography.

—Sebastiao Salgado, Photographer, Migrations

Orozco-Lang manages to photograph dire, absolute poverty with an artistic and perceptive eye that captures the sensitivity and hopeful spirit of the Dominican people. These are simply beautiful images of a people, trapped brilliantly and magically in time.

—Professor Ramona Hernandez, Director, CUNY Dominican Studies Institute

Here is the very best of the documentary tradition—the extraordinarily telling, and finely composed, powerfully arresting photography of a talented, sensitive, knowing observer and the summoning companion words of a master storyteller: such a gift to us all, such an education for us to receive gratefully, then consider with respect to its various lessons.

—Robert Coles, Author, Double Take

This book represents a wonderful body of work. The photographs are warm and joyful despite the difficult living conditions of the families and children who inhabit the neighborhood.

—Eelco Wolf, former Executive Director, Magnum Photos

[Orozco-Lang's] compassionate art follows in the tradition of other great social photographers of our America Latina: Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Sebastiào Salgado, and Tina Modotti, to name a few.

—Julia Alvarez, author of In the Name of Salomé

A moving and revealing journey into the life and soul of a particular neighborhood of the Dominican Republic...These images are enlightening in their careful approach to their subject and especially in the optimistic potential that they bring to light.

—Julian Zugazagoitia, Director, El Museo del Barrio

Orozco-Lang has experienced La Yagüita with an open heart and honest observations. The Yagüiteros take him in as their equal and peer and mirror back to us acceptance and respect.

—Shelby Lee Adams, Photographer, Appalachian Lives

Biography

Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1974, ISAÍAS OROZCO-LANG has traveled extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. He currently lives in New York City.

Novelist/poet JULIA ALVAREZ, whose books include In the Name of Salomé and Housekeeping, divides her time between Vermont and a farm-literacy project in the Dominican Republic.