Matt Eich wanders to understand the America of his generation.
Route 356 to Mineral, Ohio is flooded as the winter snows begin to melt on February 25, 2007.
Richie Goins Jr. watches from the window of his parents’ trailer as cinderblocks are brought in as the foundation for his grandmother’s new trailer. Leetha Goins and her children Timmy, 25, Troy, 16, and grandson Will, for whom she cares, were displaced when a drunk driver swerved off the road and crashed into their trailer. A recent study showed that the child poverty rate has increased 5.6 percent in the state of Ohio over the past 5 years. In the town of Chauncey specifically, 33.3 percent of those under the age of 18 live below the poverty line.
Tylor Woodrum, 16, holds a box containing his father’s ashes on January 30, 2007 in Carbondale, Ohio. Dave Woodrum was killed in August of 2006 in a high-impact 4-wheeler accident. Dave’s family had his body cremated and his favorite cock-fighting rooster mounted on top of the box.
Viewed through a collection of medicine bottles lining the Sellers’ window, Hercules crouches to watch the children playing in the snow. The Sellers family struggles with an assortment of health problems. Most of their children have asthma and twins Kacey and Lacey, 5, were both born profoundly deaf.
A Grevy’s zebra named “Elvis” stomps in the snow of his outdoor pen at The Wilds in Cumberland, Ohio on February 27, 2007. Situated on 10,000 acres of reclaimed strip mine land, The Wilds is a research and conservation facility for rare and endangered animals. During the warmer months animals are allowed to roam freely but in the winter are kept in heated indoor pens.
TV cameras roll as fireworks explode over a crowd gathered to see Punxsutawney Phil’s annual prediction in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on Thursday, February 2, 2012.
Rebel plants a second bullet in the head of a gator that kept moving after being hauled into the boat while hunting for alligators near Shell Island, Louisiana on September 20, 2009. Each gator is then tagged before being piled in the bottom of the boat.
Roger “Winky” Williams playfully points a gun at the photographer while Lorenzo Foe lights a cigarette in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on February 17, 2011.
Adrian “Nikki” Wilson stands in shafts of light and shows the “BT” sign, representing the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on November 30, 2011.
(L-R) Jabari Wilson sits next to his cousin Korwin “Quan” and mother Ellen in the dining room of the home he shares with his mother, sister Nikki and her girlfriend Dominique in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on Saturday, November 6, 2010. Jabari and his sister Nikki both work to support their mother who has a number of health problems and is unable to work. Quan (center) lost his mother in a car accident as a child and has been raised by his grandmother ever since.
A young man lit only by the dim glow of street lights stands on the corner of Young and Pelican late at night in the Baptist Town neighborhood of Greenwood, Mississippi on Thursday, November 4, 2010.
“For the last eight years I have cataloged the American experience in pictures, trying to understand this country by focusing on specific places, on communities and on the issues they embody. My hope was that these examinations of microcosms of America would allow for a deeper view of the nation as a whole. The truth is, I may have learned a lot about myself in the process, but I still have more questions than answers.
My generation lives in a constantly changing world, swept down a river of information with our eyes to the future and a shrinking awareness of the past. The disenchantment my generation displays is reflective of our nation’s transitional status from superpower to something less absolute.”
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