John Stanmeyer
Merci Jesus, June 1994
Donned in life jackets tossed to them by the U.S. Coast Guard, 468 men, women and children from Haiti were found adrift in Bahamanian waters aboard the 55-foot Merci Jesus as they were trying to seek a better life in America. They were all taken to a refugee center on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they languished for months before being returned back to Haiti. Atlantic Ocean.
At first I was taken with the name of the ship- Merci Jesus- it's so incredibly gracious and hopeful. Then I started thinking about ol' Alfie's pic The Steerage. Were the conditions of immigration then (1907) really so different from now?
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