Valerie J. Bower photographs and zines

Gelatin silver prints and photograph-based zines created by Valerie J. Bower. The We Are Essential (Mahalaga Tayo) portfolio includes eighty 8"x12" gelatin silver prints with a custom box: photographs 2021, printed 2024. Bower produced this set of prints from the photographs used in the We Are Essential (Mahalaga Tayo) zine, a homage to food distributors, farmworkers and the Manong generation of Filipino immigrants to Central California in the 1920s-1970s. For the zine, Bower visited the town of Delano, north of Los Angeles, to photograph the grape farms and historic Filipino Community Hall, where much of the 1965 Delano Grape Strike organizing took place. While researching the zine, Bower also had conversations with her mother, an immigrant to California from Butuan, Philippines, about the roots and significance of food in Filipino culture. She also photographed restaurants and cultural signage of Historic Filipinotown near downtown Los Angeles, Filipino markets in Long Beach and Carson, a major Filipino food product distributor, and followed volunteers who were preparing and delivering food to Filipino elders.

Other prints include seven miscellaneous prints from 2016-2019, and eight 8"x12" gelatin silver prints: photographs 2015, printed 2024. These photographs were originally reproduced in Gusmano Cesaretti's Fotofolio publication featuring car club and lowrider scenes taken around Watts, North Hollywood, Crenshaw, and East Los Angeles.

Also included are copies of eleven of Bower's zines: Girls L.A., 2016; Homegirls, 2017; Tonight, 2019; Picture Us, 2021; We Are Essential (Mahalaga Tayo), 2021; Watts (revisited), 2023; Now and Forever, 2023; JP17: photographs 2017, published 2024; Philippines Street: photos 2016, published 2024; Blue Line: photographs 2014, 2015, published 2024; and Tropikal: photographs 2009, 2011, 2016, published 2025.