Homecoming: Summer in Chinatown, New York

Alex Lai

These photographs, which were taken during a 2022 trip to New York, capture scenes from the busy streets of Chinatown. While there, I was struck by the familiarity of the sights and smells, and of the comfort of hearing my mother tongue, Cantonese, spoken freely. I was reminded of my childhood summers in Hong Kong– a place that may not always exist for me to return home to. Together, these images represent the resilience of the people of Hong Kong and our ability to thrive in hostile environments, to make new homes and build new lives, all while holding onto our culture. They depict our refusal to surrender our language, our food, our practices, and our beliefs. As a Chinese-Irish man, I do not often experience this collective sense of cultural pride and belonging. There is no Chinatown in Dublin. In Ireland, the place where I was born, I have always been the “Other.” I have often been stopped by White Irish people and asked, “Where are you really from?”, a question that, as Sara Ahmed describes, works as an assertion: “When you are stopped, a right to stop you is asserted. In being assertive, such speech acts render you questionable, as someone who can be questioned, as someone who should be willing to receive a question. A body can become a question mark” (2017, p. 116). These photographs are intended to represent a freedom from such assertions, and a joyful homecoming in a land far from home.

Ahmed, S. (2017) Living a feminist life. 1st ed. Durham: Duke University Press.