The Paradoxes Of Our Experiences

Featuring Jarod Lew Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski

Website Instagram

Discovering the secret kept in the family and his mother's connection to Vincent Chin, a Chinese American who was murdered in a racial assault, provided Jarod Lew with an angle that became imperative to his work. Jarod explains that “uncovering my family history has renewed my commitment to visualizing my communities in honest ways.” Jarod realized that his unique experiences as the next generation of Chinese Americans are exactly what allows him to see and openly speak about what might not be visible to others. 

In this interview, we speak with Jarod about his recent projects. With the series — Please Take Off Your Shoes — Jarod explores similarities and differences between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generations of Chinese people in the US, commenting on the changing identity in connection to the surroundings inherent to the Chinese and American cultures and what is in between. South of Heaven and Maybe I’ll See You There — are projects in which Jarod explores the city and neighborhoods of Detroit and documents mundane moments in the lives of the city’s inhabitants. According to Jarod, working on those series “was the first time I felt the power of photography. It made me feel hopeful about something even when there seemed nothing to be hopeful about.”

Jarod Lew is a Chinese American artist and photographer based in New Haven, the US. Jarod gained his Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from Michigan State University and is working towards his MFA from the Yale School of Art. Jarod researches themes of identity and community, focusing on the experiences of Chinese Americans in an authentic manner through a micro perspective on the private sector and a macro perspective on the life of a community in connection to wider subjects as a concept of the American Dream.

My Story

Hi Jarod, so nice to have you for this conversation! You're currently studying toward an MFA at Yale School of Art. What are your expectations from this degree?

I knew going into this program that I wanted to grow as an artist. I wanted to have the space and time to explore ideas, materials, and other ways of image-making that would challenge my understanding of photography. Through the program, I hope to open myself up to new possibilities in my work while refining how I pursue new projects.

‘My work has always grappled with what goes unnoticed, overlooked, and kept from public view, even kept a secret, like my mom’s connection to Vincent Chin.’

The Question of Identity

In what way do you think the past affects the present and future? How do personal stories uncovered by mere chance shape the narrative you strive to build? I’m referring to learning about the brutal murder of your mother’s fioncé, Vincent Chin, and how it affected your practice as a photographer. 

I realized that my mother’s connection to Vincent Chin has always haunted my work. Prior to finding out about this history, my projects documented the nature of my surroundings. They were contemplations of suburban life in Detroit, attempts at understanding the American Dream against the backdrop of a gutted industrial city. News of revival and new commercial developments seemed intent on forgetting the city’s past. This desire to forget and move on didn’t sit well with me.

Documenting what the mass media was keen to gloss over informed my next project, Please Take Off Your Shoes. Please Take Off Your Shoes is about the complexities of the Asian American experience and how much of that experience takes shape within private domestic spaces. In these ways, my work has always grappled with what goes unnoticed, overlooked, and kept from public view, even kept a secret, like my mom’s connection to Vincent Chin.

Ultimately, learning about Vincent Chin’s history helped me better articulate my perspective and how I see the world. It’s helped construct a very specific viewpoint on what I want to explore. It’s helped me understand myself as a Chinese American and how my experiences have made me sensitive to what might go unseen, especially in plain sight. And what I have found is a richness of life, community, and connection in those scenes and places that had seemed so bereft before. I would even venture to say that uncovering my family history has renewed my commitment to visualizing my communities in honest ways. It’s how I make sense of my life and work, which was made possible because of one man’s death that launched a movement.

‘I was looking a lot at my surroundings in suburbia and trying to navigate a visual language that could express what the American dream was in the midwest.’

South of Heaven

How did this project develop, and how would you juxtapose it to Maybe I’ll See You There, as both have a deep connection to Detroit? South of Heaven depicts the suburbs of the city, the mundane, the life of real people that, in a way, provides hope with the atmosphere you captured in the frames. 

South of Heaven was my first photographic project as a photographer after being let go from my job at a high school portrait studio. Leaving the studio, I wanted to be out in the world exploring a more narrative-driven way of making photographs. I was looking a lot at my surroundings in suburbia and trying to navigate a visual language that could express what the American dream was in the midwest. I focused heavily on neighborhoods that surrounded the city of Detroit and thought a lot about white flight and the formation of Michigan’s suburban communities after the Detroit rebellion of 1967.

Perhaps the idea of hope makes its way into the frame because of the nature of where I was personally. Photography helped me see the world I was in differently and gave me hope then. America’s economy was at its worst since the great depression, Detroit was slowly entering bankruptcy, and I was unemployed! I wasn’t drawn to the medium as a tool that could help me survive but instead drawn to its poetic ways of viewing a mundane and even depressing situation. It was the first time I felt the power of photography. It made me feel hopeful about something even when there seemed nothing to be hopeful about.

Maybe I’ll See You There

The project Maybe I’ll See You There turned out to become a quest to discover the city of Detroit and, more so, its people and their stories. The narrative is about a city with a difficult history that shaped the lives of generations who decided to stay or return. What is an encounter or a story that made an impression on you while working on this project?  

While making that work, I kept coming across this one sentiment and expression by so many people I photographed and spoke with who would comment, "This new Detroit is not for us." Almost overnight, Detroit became an impenetrable bubble that locals could not enter.

‘I remember overhearing elders tell my parents that I was an American Born Chinese, which literally translates to mean an inauthentic Chinese person, in Cantonese.’

Please Take Off Your Shoes

As a third-generation Asian American born to a family that preserved the language, aesthetics, culture, and traditions, what was still new to you, or what did you discover while working on this project and learning more about the Asian community? What are the main noticeable differences between the generations?

I’m what people would call 2.5 gen because my mom is a first-generation immigrant. But putting technicalities aside, I was born into a family that had 'assimilated' into the 'American' culture out of survival. I use the term assimilation cautiously because the term suggests that you can erase and overcome your racial differences and one day finally become American. And, American means so many different things. But the aesthetics of my parents' home was a mixture of American/Euro-inspired objects with a sprinkling of Chinese cultural ornaments, ceramic pottery, and an ornate Chinese wooden table with chairs beside a 40’’ TV playing football all the time. 

Our family celebrated Thanksgiving and Chinese Lunar New Year, rooted for the Dallas Cowboys during the NFL Super Bowl, and frequented my mom’s favorite Cantonese restaurant; separate from all that, I remember overhearing elders tell my parents that I was an American Born Chinese, which literally translates to mean an inauthentic Chinese person, in Cantonese. These traditions and cross-cultural experiences helped guide my conversations with my collaborators while working on Please Take Off Your Shoes. We realized that our experiences were not too different. The similarities in our experiences as 2nd and 3rd gen Asian Americans helped inform how I wanted to construct each image, which ultimately led to me making photographs that looked at the paradoxes (invisibility/visibility, safety/unsafe, authentic/inauthentic) of our experiences.

But my photographs also resonate with those of my parents' generation. They see and understand specific narratives that I am exploring in my photographs, but their reading of that narrative comes from a different time and context. An example of that is the image of my friend Eugene being handed a plate of cut oranges. In that image, I was exploring the plate of cut fruit as a gesture or symbol of a parent's love for their child. When my Aunt saw that photograph, she immediately recognized the plate of cut oranges as the symbol of wealth and prosperity. She told me a story about how my aunt and uncle, who had very little, would often give her cut oranges to insure that in the future she would live a healthy and wealthy life which to me is simply just another generation's way of telling their child, I love you.

A Sneak Peek

What project/s are you currently working on, and what should we expect next in terms of themes you’re developing? 

Currently, I’m exploring and conducting research for a few different projects. One is a project that looks at strangers' 1950s family Kodachrome archives that I found at an estate sale in Michigan. Examining this family’s archive, I came across images that documented their neighborhood block party that was 'Chinese-themed.' I purchased the 'Chinese Block Party' images from that archive and started to collage my face onto them as if I was haunting this block party. There’s a lot I’m exploring through these images that I’m excited about. For instance, how ideas of racial authenticity were being challenged and reinforced at a time when US militarism was growing in East and Southeast Asia.