Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

by Chris Arnade

My focus changed during a rare quiet moment in the industrial part of Hunts Point on a Sunday afternoon. The truck traffic was light and most of the shops closed. Takeesha was standing alone by a trickling fire hydrant, washing her face. She was working, wearing thigh-high faux-leather red boots, leopard-print tights, waving at whatever car or truck passed by. I had seen her before, and she had always smiled at me or waved, but I had never stopped to talk to her. This time she looked over at me, and with a big smile she yelled, “Hey, take my picture!” When I asked why, she said, “Because I am a sexy, beautiful prostitute.” We talked, and over the next half hour she told me her life story. She told me how her mother’s pimp put her on the streets at twelve. How she had her first child at thirteen. How she was addicted to heroin. I ended by asking her the question I asked everyone I photographed: How do you want to be described? She replied without a pause, “As who I am. A prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God.”