the Dove & the law

From the Introduction to La paloma y la ley

Before I met Marta, I met her hand, hanging out the window of a car and holding a cigarette. I approached the dark-green buggy and took a picture. The curves of her fingers extended into acrylic nails, all bronze-colored half-moons punctuated by one glittered nail on the ring finger.

The cigarette burned between her index and middle fingers, which no longer extended all the way—an injury from a fight with her man, some twelve years ago.

I’d been photographing her friend Mita for a story about mulas, the people who bring cheap clothes to Cuba in suitcases and sell them on the black market.

That day, Mita and Marta were picking me up from the Capri police station in Arroyo Naranjo, in the outskirts of Havana. I’d been detained briefly after photographing a police officer without my press credentials on me.

After they scooped me up, we went to buy beers.

Text by Lisette Poole

La paloma y la ley is a 360-page visual ethnography about Liset and Marta’s journey.

The book is featured in collections at the U.S. Library of Congress, Harvard University and The Cuban Heritage Collection at Miami University, among others.

It was been recognized by TIME as one of the Photobooks of the Year (2019) and World Press Photo’s 6x6 Global Talent. See more info about the project here.

I told her, “I’m coming with you,” she said, “OK.” We developed a friendship that was constantly underpinned by the fact that I was a journalist and wanted to cover some aspect of her life… she would eventually become such a huge part of my own.

On May 13, 2016, Liset and Marta left Havana. They knew they wanted to get to the U.S., but they didn’t know how. All they had was one coyote’s name scribbled on a piece of paper and two plane tickets to Guyana.