Like many others I was both angry and sad seeing the violence and racism against the AAPI community as a result of Covid-19. After the Atlanta shootings
and even more assaults on Asian women all over the US, I struggled to process it all. These woman could have been my mom or my sisters. I reached out to some of my friends for this collaboration; I am deeply grateful to them for agreeing to be part of it.
We took a portrait photo together, and they added an old photo and some words that had some meaning to them personally, which I blended all together. The result is a protest series that I hope amplifies their voices and messages.
Photo: Miya’s grandfather (Kim’s father) and others at the funeral for her great-uncle in the Gila River Butte “Relocation Center” Internment Camp, Arizona, shortly after his death on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 23, 1944. Text: nidoto nai yoni (“let it not happen again”)
Photo: Hands of a Chinese garment worker in San Francisco. “My mom was a seamstress, and I grew up in the Excelsior District, Chinatown, and in the factories she worked in when I was a kid.” Text: immigrant hustle
Photo: Iris’s family
Quote: without community, there is no liberation —Audre Lorde
Photo: Celebrating 2021 Commencement with friends. ”As college graduates we are the next adults in line, and I feel a lot of hope that in the spaces we end up in we will challenge existing structures to be more inclusive.” Text: isang bagsak (“If one falls, we all fall”). “This phrase originated from Larry Itliong during the United Farm Workers
Photo: Cantonese hot pot. ”Food has been such a fun way to connect with friends and family during the pandemic and to honor our family and cultural history. It also reminds me of the idea of food as protest or counter-narrative against racism.” Text: “I’ve been thinking about this saying a lot. I think it’s applicable to so many things
Photo: “It’s just really nostalgic since it’s picturing multiple generations of my family from when I was young. I saw it sitting in my aunt’s house last month on the day of my grandmother’s funeral so it just seemed like a fitting one.” Text: “I read Joy Luck Club when I was very young—actually randomly picked up secondhand copy in
Photo: Tiger in third grade not long after emigrating to the United States from Beijing in 2007 Text: reminding myself that what i am is enough