SOMEWHERE

Small town America through people and place. A perspective on my hometown of Alva, Oklahoma, a community connected by family, faith, and familiarity. This work illustrates the physical nature of place, explores the condition of people within this community, and highlights perspectives outside of the norm.

Population: 5,103.

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PLACE defines the structure of small towns. The town of Alva was established on territory stolen from Comanche, Cherokee, Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita people during the 1893 Cherokee Strip Land Run, the largest land run in US history. Alva exists on an open and seemingly endless expanse of fields and natural landscapes. Alva remains rooted in the strength of agriculture as industries like oil boom and bust. The town consists of farms, schools, churches and most basic amenities like grocery stores and local businesses. The proximity of place connects people to these structures that form the town’s identity.

PEOPLE are the gatekeepers within small towns. Alva has a close-knit community of people who have lived and worked in the town for their entire lives. The majority of residents have grown up, gone to school, and raised families in the only place they have known as home. In Alva, people find their roles within the community through local business, in education, and in the church. The small community bonds people through support and constant closeness. The people featured are some of the best neighbors, teachers, family friends, and folks I knew in my time living in Alva. I asked them some questions about why they consider this place home, what challenges and flaws affect their home, and how home parallels conditions of the country.

FAMILIARITY with the traditional norm is standard in small towns. Alva is not a diverse place across many spectrums such as age, race, and culture. The images of people captured in this series primarily show older white individuals and couples. These people are a reflection of the makeup of the town both at the time of my youth and now. Familiarity with such homogeneity in people and limited realization of change is evident in places like Alva. Symbols of racism and ties to an unfortunate past exist in commonplace while representations of differences, culturally or racially, do not appear in prominently. As I grew up in one of the few minority households, our difference existed in contrast to the norm as do minorities and aspects of inequality today.

The diversity that escapes the norm within Alva, Oklahoma was not easily found in my time growing up here as well as in creating this series. Two of the most evident points of diversity focus on: my parents, Indian immigrants who work in Alva as a Montessori pre-school teacher and college professor; and a friend from high school and her fiancé, who are un-wed expecting parents and an interracial couple in a place where a shared identity as such is still considered unconventional. These complexities illustrate the smallness of places like Alva, where community centers place even as that circle is limited.