This is a media project created by Dalia Elsaid, a master’s student in Reed College of Media, West Virginia University.
The project endeavors to pose an inquiry into broad issues of identity, cultural significance and the perception of home with the overarching theme of immigration. It aims to celebrate and showcase the value of diversity and inclusivity in the community by focusing on stories of second-generation Americans and their immigrant parents.
By making these families more visible, the project seeks to communicate a more complex and nuanced portrait of these individuals and present their stories in a way that differs from the typically immigrants’ lives portrayed by the media. These children and their families are more layered than the superficial or stereotypical depictions by which they are often betrayed. They are more than their non-conventional American names, their different facial features, food, or holidays. The breadth of their living, their struggles, mishaps, and triumphs are worth sharing and celebrating.
Dalia began this project in August 2017. She identified three second-generation youths (defined as native-born residents who have at least one foreign-born parent). She held interviews with the children and their immigrant parents, then documented certain aspects of their lives to bring viewers into their lives and make their culture-traversing experiences accessible and relatable. The project embodies a range of mediums, including videos, photo series, and written stories. The ultimate goal is to create a connection between the viewer and these families’ stories. Hopefully, the project will also resonate with immigrant families who will be able to see threads of their experiences represented. Representation isn’t just about seeing yourself in art or culture — it’s about feeling connected to and seen as part of a larger community. It’s important for people to have this feeling of belonging. This is critical for people’s well-being anywhere in the world. One of the risks of not being represented, of quieting some voices and keeping some groups invisible, is that “the other” can fill your absence, your silence, with his or her own interpretation. When you can’t read people, hear their voices, see their faces, you fill in the blanks, write your own story about who they are, you give in to a single narrative. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie puts it in her TED talk (2009), “when we reject a single story, when we realize there is never a single story about any place, we gain a kind of paradise.”