In the wake of the 2021 Atlanta Spa Shootings, Emily Hanako Momohara began a portrait project that seeks to elevate the immigration narratives of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and families. She challenges the stereotypes that have shrouded the identities of AAPI women, including herself, and made them invisible in daily Western culture.
Through portraits and landscapes these stereotypes fall away, and the subjects are solidly planted in American culture. In the expansive, collaged portraits, AAPI women hold family photographs of their migrant forebearers and reveal personal journeys as varied as fleeing the Chinese Cultural Revolution and coming to the United States for college. In some cases, the subjects are the first individual of the family to have immigrated at the turn of the twentieth century, beginning five generations of American family narratives. The photographs within the photographs visually represents time and legacy. The imagery depicts US locations important to the women portrayed, creating a connection to place and revealing and making clear their American familial roots.
