CNN posts an impassioned interview with author Saundra Amrhein about her experience meeting, and writing about, immigrants for the newly released Green Card Stories. When asked what the narratives from the book convey about the character of people immigrating to America, and about America itself, Saundra notes:

“About the immigrants themselves, it requires a phenomenal amount of resilience to come here and go through what they go through. Whether they’re coming from poverty, or come from their countries as professionals and had to start cleaning floors when they got here. They have such a tenacity and strength, you find that not only has that strength enabled them to become really productive people, but that has also led them to pursue what they love in life.”

You can view more images from Green Card Stories at CNN’s Photo Blog. To learn more about the Green Card Stories project, visit their website.

Daylight magazine features Grace Before Dying with a video feature on their website. Lori Waselchuk discusses her work with the hospice program at Angola prison in Louisiana, accompanied by the portfolio of her photographs. Grace Before Dying, published June 2011 and currently on exhibition at our Gallery, follows the heart-wrenching transformation of one of the most dangerous prisons in the country into one of the most humane.

CYJO was recently invited to explore the ideas from KYOPO for La Lettre de la Photographie. She writes ”The project allows the viewer to determine how much a culture or personality can be registered from an individual portrait, their stance or their muscle gestures. Does an individual portrait contain a different message than from a collective portrait?” Read the full story here.

Yesterday, WNYC’s Leonard Lopate spoke to Green Card Stories author and immigration lawyer Stephen Yale-Loehr and GCS profilees Randolph Sealey (above) and Angela Andrade about the current state of immigration in America and where immigration policy is headed in the 21st century. Randolph Sealey and Angela Andrade’s fascinating stories illustrate the personal side of immigration policy and makes this show illuminating and lively. Listen here.

Today marks the official launch of Green Card Stories! Through dynamic narratives and intimate portraits, this book examines the lives of fifty recent immigrants to the U.S., revealing the breadth and diversity of the immigrant experience. We hope this book will inspire dialogue about the current state of our country’s immigration law, and generate ideas as to how we can improve the system.

Congratulations to Laura Danielson, Stephen Yale-Loehr, Saundra Amrhein, and Ariana Lindquist for realizing this amazing project.

Help us celebrate the launch of Green Card Stories! Check out this list of events in the NYC area.

Photo-eye reviews Rania Matar’s new portfolio, La Femme-Enfant, a work that deals again with times of transition in a girl’s life. Where A Girl and Her Room captures teenage girls and the spaces that display their unique identities, this portfolio portrays a group of younger girls, contemplating the transitional age between childhood and adulthood.

As Photo-eye writes, “Some are vulnerable, others defiant, yet all portray the uniqueness of their age, the in between years, the age of transition from child to young adult.”

Today marks the two year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, the devastation of which is still evident. According to the International Organization for Migration, approximately 634,000 people remain living in displacement camps.

For some insight into this issue, head over the La Lettre de la Photographie to read Sara Rosen’s latest review of Wyatt Gallery‘s Tent Life: Haiti, where she writes:

“Gallery’s photographs are a testament to . . . the beauty of the human spirit that glows from within. His photographs show us that despite the worst possible circumstances, the people of Haiti have something so many of us lack: the commitment to family, to community, to rising above. Can’t hold us down, not by the forces of Man nor Nature.

The photographs are at quietly shocking, such beautifully composed images of honor and pride in the face of total devastation.”

Fifty percent of all proceeds from the purchase of the book goes toward one of three charities: The Global Syndicate, Healing Haiti, and J/P HRO.

The style/art/fashion blog took a shine to CYJO’s project, which explores unity and dissonance in Korean identity. Her work is up at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, part of “Portraiture Now: Asian American Portraits of Encounter,” through Oct. 2012. Don’t miss this thought-provoking show if you’re in the D.C. area.

Remember what your room looked like when you were 15?

Drop in on the Foster Gallery at the Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, MA, where Rania Matar‘s “A Girl and Her Room” is on display from January 9 – February 17, 2012. Matar spent several years photographing teenage girls in their most private spaces – their bedrooms – and these revealing images are the result. Some rooms are strewn with clothes, nail polish, and makeup, photographs cluttering the walls, while others are neat as a pin. We’re not telling what ours looked like…

Umbrage is publishing A Girl and Her Room in Spring 2012.