'I've walked between two worlds': What belonging means for Asian Americans

In the wake of horrific acts of racism committed against Asian Americans in 2021, including a series of deadly shootings at spas in Atlanta, we wanted to find a way to address this topic but explore it the feeling of “belonging” for Asian Americans. Photographer Haruka Sakaguchi and writer Elaine Teng set out to ask Asian Americans living in Georgia what the concepts of belonging and the American dream meant to them.

We wanted to make the experience with the people we photographed a collaborative and dynamic one. Elaine and Haruka interviewed family members across generations to highlight the intergenerational divide that existed among family members in their interpretation of these concepts, resulting in a series of portraits Haruka made inside the families’ homes, and their written responses to these prompts.