Luo Yang’s portraits show the Asian diaspora as they want to be seen

“My Asian friends sometimes are surprised and say I’m quite ‘old school’ after all,” Chinese-Canadian model Mei Mei tells Luo Yang in an interview that is featured in her new exhibition, Diaspora Birds, at Migrant Bird Space in Berlin. “Unlike Western families, there are so many rules,” she says. “I always tried to look after youngers and respect elders.” These kinds of stories, which explore the duality of life as an Asian immigrant living in their adopted homes, are at the heart of Yang’s new show. “Recording their stories – their experiences growing up between two different worlds, their emotions, confusions, joys, struggles, and courage – is meaningful in itself. Capturing their existence is, in itself, something beautiful,” she explains.

The main challenges of moving from China to Europe “are still rooted in the differences between Eastern and Western cultures, values, social systems, and lifestyles”, continues Yang, who was born in Liaoning, a coastal province in northeast China, before moving to Beijing and Shanghai. “There’s also the question of how, as an Asian individual, to realise one’s own value and potential within Western society.”

Mei Mei found it hard to gain traction as a model in Europe, after first being scouted in 2010, because too many people would tell her they “weren’t looking for an Asian face”. But for Justine, a third-generation Vietnamese immigrant raised in Paris and pictured fresh-faced with an angry grey sky behind her, the rejection started earlier. “Throughout my teenage years, I was never the girl guys wanted to date. I spent so much time thinking how my life would be better if I looked more like my dad. I have pages and pages of diaries where I wrote about how painful it was not being the blonde, white girl everyone seemed to find beautiful – the kind of beauty that dominated the media we were consuming at the time.”

Yang started this project by telling the stories of Chinese immigrants, but soon came into contact with a diverse range of Asian individuals from different countries including Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The group spans gender, age and occupation, emcompassing first and second-generation immigrants, international students, adopted orphans and trans people. “There are certain profound connections that come from our DNA,” Yang says. “The hardships of first-generation immigrants, the confusion of identity for second-generation immigrants, and the struggles of navigating and integrating into two different cultures all play a significant role.”

She photographs her subjects in places that feel familiar: outdoor locations like Chinatown and Belleville in Paris, or the Vietnamese Dong Xuan Center in Berlin, as well as and indoor spaces where many Asian communites, live, work, eat and shop – striving to create a sense of ease that gives her images their intimacy. “These spots serve as a limited connection to their Asian homelands,” she says. Thérèse, who grew up visiting a shop, like this, that her Chinese and Lao parents worked at in the Paris suburbs of Ivry-sur-Seine, says they sold hair relaxer kits, okra, attieke, jasmine rice and oyster sauce craved by the community she belonged to.

Thérèse is captured with long blonde hair extensions, fishnet stockings and silver hot pants, the large scar on her stomach exposed. It was important to Luo that each of her subjects style and express themselves exactly as they wanted. “What I want to capture is their authentic selves and how they naturally present who they are,” explains Yang.

Theppie, a musician who lives in Paris, is photographed topless on a rooftop in Paris, his tattoos exposed. They’re “a blend of my Thai-Chinese heritage, my values, and the blessings of my ancestors, are a reflection of who I am,” he says. “My father, a tattooed rebel in his youth once offered to introduce me to his artist but I declined, knowing that my ink tells my own story – unique and unfinished.” Theppie’s father fled the communist war in Laos when he was just 16 years old, swimming across the Mekong River to Thailand in the middle of the night and dodging gunfire. Eventually, he made his way to France, where he could listen to the American music he loved – Lobo, The Police and Rod Steward – freely. He passed his passion onto his son.

Most of the people Yang photographed can return home at any point they choose, but as time goes on, she says, “there’s another, more difficult kind of ‘return’ – one in which both the self and the homeland have changed so much that reconnection becomes nearly impossible,” she explains. “This is especially true when loved ones back home pass away, and those ties gradually fade. It can feel like being an immigrant is to become like a bird without feet, unable to truly return.”

Luo Yang’s exhibition Diaspora Birds is at Migrant Bird Space in Berlin until 28 December 2024