My family fled Vietnam on a boat when I was a child. We were rescued and placed into a refugee camp for several months before being sponsored by a Church to live in Canada. I grew up alienated and ostracized in a home that was foreign to me without a sense of who I was or where I belonged. When the Canada Council of Arts gave me a grant to conduct research in Vietnam, I used that to see how the communities we came from defines our origins and how our origins affects our identity. These are images of my birthplace, friends, family, and neighbours, frozen glimpses into the lives of a people and country on the cusp of change, a portrait, and ultimately of myself.
Our family made the dangerous decision to escape as one of the boat people; part of the large exodus of Vietnamese refugees that fled Vietnam in the late 70's and early 80's. We were rescued and placed into a refugee camp, where we were processed and stacked on top of each other in warehouses next to a military training facility. It was there where my father was interviewed by representatives of a church in Canada that eventually sponsored us.
I grew up alienated and ostracized in a home that was foreign to me without a sense of who I was or where I belonged. When the Canada Council of Arts gave me a grant to conduct research in Vietnam, I used that to see how the communities we came from defines our origins and how our origins affects our identity. My homecoming was an answer to who I am, but also alien to me, though everything that was incidentally familiar to me became a part of me; from the language to the skin tones to the way we sat and the food we ate, even to the smells of what I imagined home to be like. These are images of my birthplace, friends, family, and neighbours, frozen glimpses into the lives of a people and country on the cusp of change, a portrait, and ultimately of myself.