What Family Photos Reveal About National Identity

In March 1979, Hon Lu stood in Narita International Airport in Tokyo as his family was en route to Canada. In one photograph, the little boy is dwarfed by the nose of a plane just the other side of the terminal’s windows. The image shouts some clues about the era: The vinyl seating, striped turtlenecks, and blue pants that flare out at the ankles help place it in a timeline. But the family history contained within the image would be invisible to a casual viewer.

Lu’s mother was an avid amateur photographer, and when the family fled Vietnam, they had to leave their archive behind. The family members who remained sent the photographs along via boat, and the family reunited with the collection in Hong Kong, where the refugees stopped over before continuing on to Canada. Along the way, the family picked up a new camera and documented the legs of their journey. Stuffed into those suitcases heaped next to Hon Lu, mingled with a tangle of coats and bags, are the family’s photographs, says Thy Phu, the principal investigator at the Family Camera Network. “The story of the family’s journey is also the story of the photograph’s journey from one place to another,” she says.