The Monarch Project, created in partnership with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and Guerrilla FC, is a photographic and documentary exploration of immigration in the United States, centered on the lives of two people who experienced the system firsthand. Rather than reducing immigration to policy, headlines, or labels, the project focuses on the people behind those conversations and the lives they continued to build through uncertainty.

Through portraiture and personal testimony, the work introduces a creative with ambitious dreams and a gifted footballer grounded in faith and family. Their experiences are different, but both reveal the determination, identity, and humanity that can become obscured when immigration is discussed only as a political issue.

Because of the sensitive nature of the subject, protecting each participant’s anonymity was central to the project. That responsibility created a unique creative challenge: finding ways to build intimate and honest portraits without revealing identifying details. The visual approach became part of the storytelling, using gesture, environment, light, and personal objects to communicate who they are while preserving their safety.

Together, the photographs and stories ask viewers to look beyond the systems surrounding immigration and recognize the individuals living within them.