Three Cranes (2026)

For much of my life, I identified primarily with my Filipino heritage. It was the culture and community that were passed down to me and that felt most familiar. Although my Chinese heritage was equally a part of my background, it remained distant and largely unexplored. Beyond a handful of stories about my grandfather, my family knew little about this side of our history. Over time, these fragments began to feel more like myths than memories. Recently, I began to question my relationship with this part of my identity and what it means to reconnect with a heritage I have never fully understood. Three Cranes emerged from this exploration, inspired by my first steps toward discovering my Chinese roots during a recent trip to China. The work marks the beginning of an ongoing journey to understand a part of myself that has always been present, even when I did not know how to connect with it.