Early Spring of 2021, my friends and I were volunteering at a vaccination clinic at Hong Ning Housing, a senior housing apartment compromising of mostly Chinese-speaking older adults.

In between clinics, elders began to share their anxieties around xenophobic hate crimes in the neighborhood as well as their concerns over an increasingly empty Chinatown in the midst of the pandemic. At the same time, news outlets religiously broadcasted violent attacks and incidents in Chinatowns all around. It became apparent that the elders wanted to tell and document their own stories.

What began as casual conversations at the clinics evolved into weekly interviews with community residents, local artists, and intergenerational mom-and-pop shops. After two months of photographing, interviewing, and translating, my friends and I fashioned these stories into an exhibit, at a public space just down the block from the senior housing apartment.