Digging into yourself and who you are can be challenging on a normal day, but to accurately articulate a clear story to others and visually represent it was all the more elusive to me. This project took on so many different stories and forms before it settled into what Contradictions became.

After a series of iterating, I finally landed on a coptic bound book printed on vellum with laser etched acrylic covers. Below is some of the documentation I took while assembling the book, as well as photos of what the spreads look like digitally, not printed on vellum.

According to the Pew Research Center, a “‘second generation [American]’ refers to people born in the United States, with at least one first-generation (immigrant) parent.” For those who belong to more than one country, it can be hard to fit in with any one place, to be enough of one or the other to be able to claim it.

Created for other children of immigrants in search of a connection to their culture, Contradictions is the culmination of my search for “Asian-ness.” It is a book told from the point of view of a second-generation immigrant — and through a series of anecdotes — telling the story of how life can feel like a lot of contradictions when you belong to more than one culture but that they’re cohesive contradictions that blend together to form a single identity. It is my hope that through my experiences, others might see themselves reflected in some of my stories and realize that they too, are not so isolated from their roots as they thought.