Old Home
Jasmine Zhang
“Old Home” is a direct translation of the Mandarin term “Lǎojiā,” meaning the place where one or one’s parents grew up. It is a submission-based archive of anonymous East Asian-American childhood photos and stories. It takes the form of both a picture book and a web archive. The submissions were collected through friends and internet strangers; hopefully in the future also through numerous East Asian-Americans from around the world.
In the past, my work about childhood has been devoid of culture in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience—to seem more universal. However, my childhood experience was not universal. Why can’t a minority narrative be a larger narrative? Growing up, there were no stories about children who looked like me.