Chinatown residents tell their stories
It wasn’t intentional, but the timing felt urgent. Chinese for Affirmative Action, an Asian American activist organization based in San Francisco’s Chinatown, started conceiving “Our Intergenerational Stories: Home” at a time “well before the current political climate,” said Amy Lin, CAA’s Immigrant Rights Program Manager.
Immigrant struggles have never been new, but more recently, with President Trump’s antiimmigrant rhetoric unmasking national xenophobia, the artists of the exhibit felt the need to share their workingclass immigrant experiences.
“Our Intergenerational Stories: Home” is an art exhibit created by seven Chinatown families with a focus on themes in the immigrant experience: love, family, and the struggle for equitable housing and multilingual spaces. The exhibit runs Thursday to Sunday through July 31 at 41 Ross, an art gallery located in Ross Alley — San Francisco’s oldest alleyway.
This exhibit is the culmination of a sixmonth photography and storytelling workshop led by Vida Kuang and MLin, where the participating artists learned photography and storytelling skills. The results of the workshop — film photographs, digital pictures and oral storytelling — make up “Our Intergenerational Stories: Home.”
“Everyone’s immigration story is so complex and layered and multidimensional,” Kuang said. “That’s why we wanted to make sure that their voices are in the forefront.”
“Voices” can be interpreted both metaphorically and literally. In the center of the space is a collection of hanging photographs from each artist. Below each photo is a pair of headphones. Pick them up, and you can hear the artists speaking in Cantonese about their families and lives. You’ll learn about an artist’s first impressions of Chinatown, a working mother who immigrated to be with her American children, and you can listen in on a father and daughter’s CantoneseMandarin conversation.
Chinese and English transcriptions are available next to the headphones, as is a blownup photograph from each artist’s portfolio.
Children are one of the frequent subjects of many of the photos in the exhibit — a young girl wearing a gingerbread shirt making a silly face for the camera, two people holding the hands of a small child as they walk through red lanterndecorated streets — because “intergenerational stories” often means family projects. Yong Yu Lei said she joined the project because she wanted to document her children’s experiences growing up. One of her sons also attended workshops.
“We wanted to invite their children to do it because it’s not just about storytelling for the self, but how these stories get passed on for the next generation,” Kuang said, adding that the works “are historical forms of documentation.”