The cover story “I’m Still Crossing the Border,” about an undocumented immigrant graduating from Benito Juarez High School with a 4.7 grade-point average and a strong determination to attend college, inspired huge volumes of response from readers.
Since then, staff writer Don Terry and photographer Abel Uribe have continued to follow the illegal-immigration issue, noting the increasingly fierce battles being waged in Washington and across the country.
The pair kept a special eye on a case that has been playing out here in Chicago over the course of the last year. The result is this week’s cover story, “No way out.”
To see Abel’s photographs over the last year–well, just some of them, as he snapped more than 6,000 during that period–and to hear Don’s reports of what he was seeing and hearing, was to experience a certain alternative reality.
As presidential candidates and local politicians debate positions on everything from guest workers to local I.D. cards, the reality is much less policy-driven, more personal-the reality of individuals, with a wide range of deeply held passions.
As Don says about the woman on the cover of this week’s Magazine: “Whether you think she’s a lawbreaker or a freedom fighter, it’s hard not to admire her grit.”
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etaylor@tribune.com
