DESIGNED BY : SHARON YU
When our family chose to immigrate to the US in the hopes of finding a better future, it came at unknown, unimaginable and many unintended costs and sacrifices. The three corners of my art represent half of a house. The fourth corner represents me and my immigration story.
Traditionally, Korean families are very communal and the home is multi-generational. Extended families oftentimes lived nearby, if not in the same home. When my family immigrated to the US, it essentially split up my extended families and even my nuclear family. Much of my early childhood was disconnected, [with me] living apart from my parents in the care of my grandparents because they had immigrated to the US before me. I was eventually taken to my parents to live in a new country with a family I did not recognize as my family.
On a personal level and [as] a collective community, there are layers to searching for a new place of belonging when one immigrates to a new land, with new people among a new culture. “Where do I belong? What must I do, and how must I be in order to belong? Where is home?”
