Both Here and There: Photographic Interviews with Bi-Cultural Women in Los Angeles, 1977
Poster
28" x 12" each

In 1977, I was awarded a CETA funded grant to create a work of public art. I decided to focus on immigrant women and foreign ethnicity living in Los Angeles at that time. As a photographer, I combined the tools of portraitist, demographer and ethnographer to look at the lives of women who were caught between cultures and between old and new expectations of their gender.

From those photographs and interviews, I designed and printed “bus cards” of each woman in the series. These 1000 bus cards measured approximately 28” x 12” and were placed on Los Angeles RTD buses for a year. In 1978, of the 102 million monthly riders of the RTD buses, 20% were international and 54% were women. The interviews were in English as well as the native language of the woman in her bus card.

CETA, “Comprehensive Employment and Training Act” was established in 1974 to mirror the “New Deal” public art programs of the 1930’s. The experience I had was fundamental to my life-long work as a photographer.

Maria Karras
Marina del Rey, CA
October 2024