Depicting my son, dressed in Spider-Man pajamas and playing at the Museum of Science and Industry, this is the first in a new series of collage portraits I am making. The series, titled "Here You Are - Finding Yourself Amongst Your Ancestors," will feature portraits and biographies of my son and his ancestors. Integrating classical portraiture techniques and intuitive found paper collage, I aim to portray a layered, evocative, and complex picture of belonging, humanity, and contemporary Asian American identity.

My son's face is made from a map of Chicago's Chinatown, where he thinks I am from. (I am from China.) Various beach photos evoke the oceanside upbringing of his parents (in China and Japan, respectively). An image of Japanese architect Tadao Ando's Malibu beach house, "violently remixed" by Kanye West (The New Yorker), evokes my son's Japanese heritage as well as the intergenerational traumas that he has inherited.