依然是家: STILL HOME

In January of 2023, my cousin Mengning relocated from Guiyang, China, to Rochester, Minnesota to begin a year-long research fellowship in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She brought her daughter Yilan with her, and they moved into the upstairs guest room of my parents’ house. We were joined several months later by Mengning’s baby son Jiuxi, as well as her mother, who helped take care of Jiuxi while Mengning was working. When I returned home in the summer and winter, I spent as much time playing with Jiuxi and catching up with my Da Yima (aunt) as I could. Although I hadn't seen her in four years and could count the number of times we’d talked on one hand, I felt an instant sense of comfort around her, whether we were laughing about the constant bus delays in Rochester or encouraging Jiuxi as he took his first steps. 

My perceptions of family and kinship have always been disconnected from my idea of what “home” was. Living so far from my relatives, I had never known the togetherness that extended family can bring. I didn’t view being with family as something I was missing out on because it was something I couldn’t change. I associated being able to visit grandparents on weekends or driving to a cousin’s place an hour away as part of American culture; my Chinese roots would forever be elsewhere. 

This year, I got a glimpse of what it would have been like to grow up with the different generations of my family close enough to share dinners and celebrations of even the smallest milestones. At the same time, I saw how difficult the transition from Guiyang to Rochester was for my family members. Mengning was working on major research projects that required eight-plus hour workdays and frequent weekend drop-ins. Yilan didn’t know any English when she came to the U.S. and cried every day after being dropped off during her first few months of daycare. Da Yima didn’t speak or understand English and said she felt like a “wen mang” (illiterate), unable to explore Rochester outside of our neighborhood because of that. 

On my first few walks with Da Yima and Jiuxi to the little park down the street, I found myself thinking about how out of place they looked amongst the farmhouse-style homes and suburban sidewalks. Then I realized my parents had likely looked similar when they’d moved into our current house and began exploring the neighborhood with me. I thought about how my parents had started over when they came to America. They’d also arrived to work in a research lab, except no family was already there to help them settle in. I remember my father stumbling over English words as he checked out at the Walmart near our house, the same supermarket my cousin and Da Yima now made weekly trips to. 

Throughout the year, I felt like I was seeing parts of my own life replaying in front of me. Asking Yilan about her days at kindergarten, I was reminded of my first few weeks of preschool. My parents spoke only Chinese at home, so I didn’t know I had an English name until the teacher called on me and I didn’t respond. Roaming aimlessly around my backyard with Da Yima, watching Jiuxi reach out for flowers and rocks I had stopped noticing long ago, I reconsidered the little aspects of my stereotypically Midwestern environment. There was still beauty to be found within seemingly monotonous surroundings if I just looked at my surroundings with fresh eyes, with first-generation lenses. 

Da Yima, Mengning, Yilan, and Jiuxi moved from my parents’ house to a small townhouse closer to Yilan’s school in September. Just before they left to go back to China in January of 2024, I asked Da Yima if she felt like Rochester had been a genuine home for her this past year. I was surprised by her answer. Despite how foreign everything still seemed, and how uncomfortable the adjustment process had been, she still considered Rochester a home because her family was there. We were separated by years of unshared experiences, but the unspoken comfort of family still connected us in person, creating a feeling of home.

These photographs serve as a series of snapshots in which I document my cousin's family throughout their transition to life in the U.S. and reimagine the gradual melding of Eastern and Western lifestyles that my parents incorporated into our own household when I was a child. I explore belonging and kinship ties when one is separated from extended family by seas, years, and the dominant culture of a country of destination. Most of all, I capture the moments when I saw my cousin’s family blossom within our shared home, as well as when I felt that shared connection to my family members as I watched Mengning and Da Yima create a new, albeit temporary, life for their family in the American Midwest.