There is likely no photographer in the world who understands the World Trade Center pre-2001 more than Sam Matamoros. For this Salvadoran immigrant who fled the violence of civil war in the mid 1980s, the Twin Towers were meaningful to him before he stepped foot on U.S. soil. For Sam, the Towers represented freedom, the promise of a new life, and the hope of a child to escape from an oppressed and violent environment to a land where he could live the American Dream. The Twin Towers represent who we are as Americans, from our great wealth and influence to our ultimate vulnerability and mortality. Images of the Twin Towers have totemic power to inspire grief and patriotism in millions of Americans and others around the world. And Sam’s images are unlike any others. Just as the World Trade Center has an ongoing story of a phoenix rising from the ashes, so Sam’s own photographs reveal an ordinary immigrant whose immense talent flourishes within the larger vision of the American dream.