Film, Video Advertising, and Photography work by Brett Marty.
TIOFILO, THE HANDYMAN
TIOFILO, THE HANDYMAN // Lansing, Michigan
“I’ve never seen anybody like him. His ability to put everybody down, the soldiers, everybody… how can he get away with it?”
Tiofilo sits at a table at Pablo’s Panaderia in Old Town, drinking coffee and waiting on breakfast with a friend.
“What’s really going to happen if he wins? He’s saying he wants to send everybody back. Make America great again? What he really means is Make America white again.”
Although born in Texas, Tiofilo has lived in the Lansing area since 1970, and, despite his age – nearly 70 – he just finished working 169 hours in 10 straight days. “Paint, wax floors, build, scrapping” — he does it all.
Breakfast arrives, but Tiofilo is on a roll. He moves quickly from congress’ reluctance to work with president Obama to being abandoned by his father at age 9 and the seasonal work of his younger years, which took him to nearly all 50 states.
“Always voting democratic,” he says. He voted for Obama twice and supports Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Lansing, MI:
• City Population: 114, 297 (Metro Area: 534,684).
• Per capita income: $18,298.
• 56.5% white, 19.0% Black, 12.4% Latino, two or more races 7.7%, Asian 3.9%.
• Percentage below poverty line: 37.7%.