Winner

Adrees Latif / Reuters
“Central American Migrants”

Finalist

Alexey Yurenev / Freelance
“Silka”

Finalist

Hossein Fatemi / Panos Pictures
“The Legacy of Empire”

Finalist

Jeffrey McWhorter / Freelance
“The Time We Have Here”

Finalist

Alexey Vasilyev / Freelance
“My Dear Yakutia”

Finalist

“The Time We Have Here”

Thomas Jefferson High School, or “TJ” as it is locally known, sits 1.6 miles east of my home in Dallas, Texas. Though the school is surrounded by one of the wealthiest, primarily white neighborhoods in Texas, its student body is 94 percent Hispanic and 86 percent economically disadvantaged. Many of these students are immigrants.

As Americans have spent the past year churning endlessly through fraught discussions of border walls, caravans, family separation and MS-13, the TJ soccer players have lived their normal high school lives filled with nervous tryouts, crappy fast food jobs, new shoes, new girlfriends and an ever-hopeful eye on the future. Some of them are DACA recipients; some are asylum-seekers from Central America; some are on track to gain residency status soon. But no one really talks about who has papers and who doesn’t. They don’t watch the news or listen to NPR — “It makes my mom worry,” Cesar says. But the questions are always there: What will the judge say at my next court appearance? Will my dad make it home tonight? Should I tell my girlfriend I might be gone next month?

Most of the guys are happy to see their unsettled lives south of the border and their treacherous journeys north fade hazily into the rear view mirror. Their gaze is on the future and the promise of what might be in the land of opportunity. But it’s a clouded gaze. And the past doesn’t fade as easily as they’d like.