Now and Then explores identity as a fluid, ever-evolving process shaped by memory, history, and reinvention. Combining archival family photographs with contemporary images, the project initiates a conversation between past and present. Initiated in 2019, Now and Then focuses on the intersections of personal and cultural history, drawing from my family’s roots in Tengchong, China, and the evolving identities of the Asian diaspora in Los Angeles. By juxtaposing these two worlds, the work reflects on the tension between preserving heritage and embracing self-expression within a new cultural context.
The process of becoming often feels nostalgic, even mythic—reconstructed from fragments of memory, heritage, and inherited stories. My great-grandfather, a Kuomintang general, liberated Tengchong from Japanese occupation in WWII—a pivotal act that shaped the trajectory of my family. After the war, his immigration to America with his second family left my family—the first one—behind to endure exile in Xinjiang before rebuilding their lives in Guangzhou. These ruptures, reinventions, and sacrifices echo in the lives of the Asian communities I’ve documented in Los Angeles—individuals navigating traditions while forging new paths.
By blending imagery from Tengchong and Los Angeles, Now and Then reflects the ongoing process of becoming—suggesting that identity is not fixed, but dynamic, fluid, and constantly negotiated. It lives in moments of connection, in the spaces where history and possibility meet. This project is about that search, asking what it means to remember where we come from while embracing the complexities of who we are still becoming.
