Photographer Jarod Lew Turns His Camera on Second-Gen Asian Americans

On a Sunday afternoon back in early October, I paid a studio visit to photographer and artist Jarod Lew at Yale University in Connecticut. At the time, he had just finished printing a fresh batch of photographs for his current MFA project at Yale School of Art. He showed me some of these new prints inspired by Hong Kong and Chinese cinema, and asked about my thoughts on them as a Chinese film critic.

Lew's completed project Please Take Off Your Shoes was recently part of San Francisco MOMA's photography exhibition collectively named Kinship. The project represents second-generation Asian Americans like Lew navigating the gap between their own experience and those of their immigrant parents.

Lew launched Please Take Off Your Shoes in 2016, when he had been pondering his 2012 discovery that his mother was engaged to Vincent Chin, the Chinese American who was murdered by two white men in a racially motivated assault in Detroit on June 19, 1982. Chin's murder case induced one of the strongest nationwide waves of the Asian American civil rights movement in history.

This shocking discovery of his connection to Chin compelled Lew to dig deep into his own Chinese Americanness, and seek out young Asian Americans in his hometown state Michigan to photograph at their immigrant parents' homes—where, of course, shoes need to be taken off upon entry.

In addition to Please Take Off Your Shoes' success at SFMOMA, Lew has built a solid Asian American community by becoming friends with the subjects he's photographed for the project. Since its completion, though, Lew has evolved as a photographer and artist, and as a Chinese American more in touch with his own identity.

During my visit, we discussed the overlaps and differences between our lived experiences in the United States—me as a Chinese in the United States, and him as an American-born Chinese. From there, we explored his personal and professional journeys that bleed into each other. We eventually got back to the basics of his photo-making—for himself, for his community, and for the art form itself.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Lew scrolls open a photograph from his current Yale MFA project on his work station, shown below.

Jarod Lew: For me as a Chinese American, “tu,” the Mandarin pronunciation of "rabbit", immediately sounds like the number "two." As you can see in this photo, there are two people and two frames. There is also a pair of rabbits (tu) as door decorations. Just lots of "two"/"tu"s.

Weiting Liu: Yes. 2023 is the year of the rabbit on the Chinese lunar calendar—hence the rabbits as door decorations here. Are all these "two"s/"tu"s happy coincidences? Or did you set them up?
JL: I constructed the scene. But it was not until someone on set pronounced "rabbit" in Chinese that I realized we had another happy coincidence. My initial idea behind this photograph was just to juxtapose the visuals of two people exiting and entering via the two-way door. Some recurrent themes in my current MFA project are connection versus misconnection, and translation versus mistranslation.

Lew pulls out another photograph to further explain these recurrent themes, shown below.

In this other photo from the same project, you can see different forms of connections: the line crossing multiple frames via a cinematic red light, and a hand reaching out to touch this man's chin. In the right frame, however, there's myself who's completely disconnected from the rest of the photo, as the line of my frame does not match the line of the mainframe.

WL: Why do you choose to be on camera yourself in this photo?
JL: Because my photography art is a lot about who I am, as a Chinese American, and as a person in general. It needs my physical participation to feel truthful.

The film projected on the screen behind the man is Dislocation (1986), a Chinese political sci-fi that's beautifully shot. The projected Chinese film induces a sense of fantasy.

Working on this project inspired by Hong Kong and Chinese cinema, I myself have been experiencing a strong sense of dislocation. My mom emigrated from Hong Kong when she was young, so our family has ties over there. I first went to visit Hong Kong in 1997, the year of the Handover. My memory of it contains its neon lights filling up the nighttime landscapes.

While I'm doing research on Hong Kong and Chinese cinema for this project, seeing those films brings up mixed feelings of belonging and alienation.

WL: The theme of connection versus disconnection is also prominent in your recent San Francisco MOMA exhibition Please Take Off Your Shoes, which is about intergenerational bond rather than geographical connection.
JL: When I started Please Take Off Your Shoes in 2016 in Michigan, they felt like the right time and place—I was old enough to appreciate the Chinese traditions my immigrant parents have brought with them from their home country. Having completed that project, I'm now definitely in an even sweeter spot of understanding both worlds that are China and America.

My previous experience of being an American-born Chinese was largely about assimilation. Now, I've met many friends from China who are also my photography subjects. It blows my mind that "assimilation" is not even in the vocabulary of some of them.

It blows my mind that "assimilation" is not even in the vocabulary of some of them.

WL: I relate to this. I was born and raised in China, never having to deal with racism towards me until I came to America when I was 18. I had to learn to identify racism and microaggressions. Now, though, after a decade of being here, I've moved past this struggle with my Chineseness in America and prided myself as a global citizen.
JL: I know that you moved from China straight to Los Angeles, which, in my opinion, is a very diverse space for Asian cultures. Michigan is very different in this aspect. The Asian communities in the white suburb where I grew up are, to say the most, scattered and fractured. I didn't have any Asian friends until I started seeking out young Asians in the area to photograph for Please Take Off Your Shoes. Even then, I realized that many of my subjects also only had white friends, like I did—according to census data from 2022, 78.8 percent of Michigan is white.

WL: If someone somehow ends up in a white-majority place, they have no choice but to fall into the process of assimilation. Are you familiar with the stereotype of Asian Americans as the "model minority?" What might be your perspective on this stereotype?
JL: It's a complete overgeneralization, which essentially makes Asian Americans the enemy against other minorities. It's also not an accurate representation of my family. Neither of my parents has college degrees. They had working class jobs instead. They were amazed when my brother and I brought home report cards with anything above Cs on them. We don't fit into the myth of the "model minority." But we've always faced the pressures and expectations to embody this idea.

WL: Please Take Off Your Shoes is such an empowering embodiment of your self-discovery and community-building. The project came about after your discovery that your mom was engaged to Vincent Chin before he was murdered. How would you describe this discovery and its aftermath?
JL: I first found this out in 2012, when my then girlfriend's grandma also had a dream that I worked at their high school portrait studio. Then I actually started photography by working at that studio. It was not until three years later when my work was exhibited at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery with a $10,000 award that I gained confidence to pursue projects that could explore something more personally complicated.

I always find synchronicities in my life. And I believe in fateful coincidences—the timing of someone's dream of me starting photography aligned with my initial discovery about my family's connection to Vincent Chin. I took it as an unmissable sign the universe gave me. But it was by no means a smooth journey. The come about of Please Take Off Your Shoes was more of a slow burn. The result is of course beyond rewarding—now I have a large Asian community and a clearer understanding of my own Chineseness.

WL: Your personal identity definitely develops along with your professional progress. You built your first Asian American community while working on Please Take Off Your Shoes. Now, you are building an even larger community with your Asian friends from outside of America—and your current Yale project is inspired by Hong Kong and Chinese cinema. Would you say you are working on a pan-Asian scope nowadays?
JL: If you are an exhibition curator, you can definitely put my previous and current work together and come up with this grand pan-Asian statement. [laughs] In reality, my work is always just about who I am and what I am going through at a certain time and place. I translate my inner thoughts and spirituality onto my photographs and let them flourish and bloom. Meanwhile, the collaborative nature of my work always brings out something more communal and interpersonal. As a result, I gain a better understanding of my work, my community, and myself. Please Take Off Your Shoes has been such a strong foundation for me to build onto my self-identity and my professional journey.

I still don't consider photography as "work." I still find it purely enjoyable and inspiring.

WL: What more would you like to achieve as a photographer and artist? Having had an exhibition at SFMOMA is already a huge accomplishment.
JL: I’m currently preparing for my last year here at Yale University. While thinking about my thesis work, I will also be preparing for a few exhibitions that will come up in the next couple of years. I would love for my work to be published in a book. I think that is the ultimate form for my art to live in. Exhibitions go up and come down—but there is something permanent about the photobook that excites me.

At the same time. I always want the medium to be a pure way of expressing myself—and for the pure enjoyment of the art form. It's also my way of learning to become a better observant of the world around us. Having my work acquired by museums and galleries, I still don't consider photography as "work." I still find it purely enjoyable and inspiring.

When I work on a serious project, I need to have this elaborate setup with a big camera, a tripod, the lights, etc. Whenever I feel professional burnouts coming on, though, I just pick up a pocket camera and run around taking fun snapshots with my friends—for my community and myself. This speaks to how important photography is to me, no matter what tool I use or what context I make it in.