Described as a meditation on American work and belonging, “Working America: A Sam Comen Photography Exhibition” has been slated to open Sept. 1 at the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center in Enid.
LA-based photographer Sam Comen set out to shed light on the growing population of the Chicano and Mexican men and women who are redefining the region as much as the “Okies” did in the dustbowl era of the 1930s. As Sam introduces them in his series Lost Hills, “these individuals are living a new iteration of the “Okie” experience so prominent in our national psyche…but because some of Lost Hills’ residents are undocumented immigrants, all are assumed to be, and so may be cut out of their own American dream and denied their place in the American historical record.”