6 Women Immigrant Artists Reflect On Belonging And Home .

“Reflections on Home,” an exhibit that just opened in Oakland, CA, features the work of 19 women immigrant artists, each expressing their reflections on home and belonging. As immigration becomes increasingly prevalent in the national conversation, especially for people of color living in the US, these visual artists are making their roots known. Their aim is to challenge the notion that immigrants and second-generation citizens are antithetical to what it means to be American.

Roya Ebtehaj, Artist and Post-doctoral Fellow

“Within our current political climate, which is saturated with fake news, hate speech and polarization, I find the universal language of art quite powerful. It helps us to communicate ideas, open up cross-cultural dialogues, and allow diversity to flourish, says Roya Ebethaj, an artist who is currently pursuing a post-doc at Santa Clara University.

Ebtehaj immigrated to the US from Iran. “Home is more than just a location, it is about a feeling of belonging,” she says. “After immigrating to the US, I confronted many barriers because of my nationality. I rely on art to practice thinking outside our subjective identities and upbringing, and in order to create a space for empathic communication.”

Ebtehaj encourages every individual to share their own unique story. “Bringing that to life can be the foundation for great art as well as momentous change. Resistance, diligence, patience, and having a good eye all pave the road to making a difference.”

Kacy Jung, Artist

Kacy Jung, who immigrated to the US from Taiwan, was halfway through a PhD in biomedical science when she decided to walk out of the laboratory to pursue her lifetime dream of being an artist. Since then, she has focused on analyzing the capitalist system and the formation of socioeconomic class. Her current project, “21 Grams - The Weight of Souls,” is a photography exhibit aimed at portraying middle class life in Silicon Valley.

“With this platform, I finally have the chance to directly respond to the questions that always haunted me since I was a young girl: What makes humanity distorted? What causes us in pain? What is this capitalist system doing now? What is the American dream?” Jung says. “Using my own experience, I am examining and untangling the grace and strife of different influences that have been put upon Asian immigrants like me.”

To aspiring changemakers, Jung says, “Don’t just think it, do it. Make a game plan with steps and alternatives. Talk to people. Remember that you are not alone.”

Meriam Salem, Artist and Grad Student

Meriam Salem is an incoming Master’s student in human geography and urban studies. “In recent years, I’ve stopped believing that the world is a prison,” she says. “Whether in folklore or tradition, there’s an unchallenged belief that this planet and its forms of life were created as a form of punishment. I refuse to believe that. However, humanity in all its wonder and faults, has the imagination to create systems of imprisonment and relegate humanity as prisoners.”

In a photo essay entitled “Broken into Language,” Salem explores the social-geographical construction of home in the aftermath of displacement. The series seeks to reflect on policies, discourses, and lived experiences determining the rights to life, home and belonging for Syrians seeking refuge in Turkey as a result of the Syrian Civil War.

“Simply put, my life purpose is to be of service and I can’t find a better form of service than advocating for freedom on a planet with so much life to live for,” explains Salem. “My message is that women remain resilient and will not bow to the imagination of people who seek to harm them and their communities through physical and political acts of violence.”

To aspiring changemakers, Salem offers this advice. “Remain steadfast, listen, reflect, and remember to be curious. Without curiosity, what may be completely normal will start to feel alien; like people migrating to find a place they can call home.”

Kiana Honarmand, Artist

Kiana Honarmand grew up in the Middle East. Her work blends the history of Western and Persian Art into a merged imagery of her present and past cultural environments. “Art offers a safe space to speak about difficult issues and bring people from different backgrounds closer together in a time where there is a lot of conflict between cultures and countries,” she says. “My goal is to shed light on different issues related to my Middle Eastern identity.”

The pieces Honarmand has included in this exhibition are from a series entitled “One Window is Enough for Me.” Reproductions of Renaissance paintings are obscured under a curtain of Persian calligraphy and patterns common in Islamic art and architecture. With this work, she hopes to show that “home is a complicated concept influenced by a multitude of factors.”

“Keep on trying,” Honarmand says to aspiring changemakers. “Change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process that takes time and hard work. Focus on small things and start there. It’s like throwing a pebble into a lake. The first impact is small, but it creates a ripple effect that keeps getting larger.”

Kim Sweeney, Artist and Museum Educator

Kim Sweeney was raised in the US, but her mother came to America as a Cambodian refugee. “For me, home is a complicated concept,” she says. “When I was younger, it was easy for me to romanticize a sort of pastoral fantasy of my mother’s native homeland. But when I returned to Cambodia, I was torn between loving the beauty of the land and being angry and frustrated with the struggles our people currently face.”

With her artwork, Sweeney hopes to convey the diversity of the refugee experience. “I don’t necessarily see home as Cambodia or the United States, because I do not feel my unique racial hybridity and experience are represented in the cultural landscape of either. Rather, home for me is a constant state of in-between.”

Sweeney also is fascinated by art as a means of connecting people. She explains, “When you see something in an art piece that you relate to, it can be really powerful and validating. To know your life experience is shared, to have it be seen and acknowledged by another – that can be a truly transformative moment, especially in the case of immigrants and refugees, who may not see themselves represented in their day-to-day environment.”

“In order to create lasting change, we must act from a place of love,” Sweeney says to aspiring changemakers. “This means we must constantly be making an effort to learn. I’ve been trying to focus on supporting my allies and making space for them. Taking care of ourselves and our community is a big part of the work needed to promote optimism and hope for the future.”

Nimisha Doongarwal, Artist and Software Engineer

“Immigration is important for demographic expansion and increasing diversity, but it comes with its own set of social issues,” says Nimisha Doongarwal, an artist and software engineer who immigrated to the US from India. “There is a visible prejudice against immigrants in multicultural societies, fostering public resistance to immigration and negative intergroup attitudes. This attitude can cause discriminatory behaviors and sometimes erupts into violence.”

“But we have more similarities than differences,” she continues. “The portraits I create emphasize the cultural and traditional overlaps that make us extremely similar, irrespective of physical appearances. I strive to encourage people to embrace cultural diversity and reduce the prejudice against groups based on color, race, religion, appearance, and so on.”

Doongarwal says she has been surprised by the ways in which art has changed her perception of things as an engineer. But most importantly, art inspires her to explore the past and the impact it has on current social issues. “My goal is to give a voice to the issues we immigrants face around the world, though my art and advocate awareness,” she says.

“Creating art is easy, but creating art that matters is very difficult,” Doongarwal cautions aspiring changemakers. “It is necessary to be honest and create art that you strongly believe in. Never be scared of taking risks or making mistakes, because that is the biggest enemy of creativity and traps us in mediocrity.”

This article was penned by MeiMei Fox.

MeiMei Fox is a New York Times bestselling author, coauthor and ghostwriter of over a dozen non-fiction books and thousands of articles for publications including Huffington Post, Self, Stanford magazine, and MindBodyGreen. She specializes in health, psychology, self-help and finding your life purpose.