I met Hai and his mother Shi in November 2018. By the time, it had been a year since Yang fell from the 4th floor. Yang was a massage worker living in Flushing. November 2017, she fell off from the fourth-floor balcony during the police arrest and died. This incident was reported as an influential article in New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/11/nyregion/sex-workers-massage-parlor.html
For Yang’s family, this year was a year of struggle. After Yang’s death, her family came to New York to take care of everything. Until the end of March 2019, her younger brother Hai and her mother Shi have stayed in Flushing for more than a year. This project focuses on the other side of the tragedy: how does it traumatize the family. After Yang’s death, the whole family have suffered from the loss of loved ones but still have to stand up and face everything, they’re also victims. I try to show this very important part of tragedy by documenting Hai and his mother’s life in New York. They never moved on, everything about this family ever since seems to be related to the incident. They are trapped in this tragedy.
One of many factors that have to be considered is that Yang’ was a Chinese immigrant in the United States. The identity of the outsider puts her in an isolated situation. Yang’s incident may be an extreme case, but it also shows commonalities between Chinese immigrants in America: language barriers, huge cultural differences, lack of identity, struggling at the bottom of society, and the lack of effective protection, all of these leading to the distrust and sensitive attitude of Chinese immigrants to the United States. They always existed on this land as an outsider. While pursuing a better life, they are also eager for a sense of belonging. When they came here with an “American dream”, they wouldn't think of this dream could become a fragile bubble just due to their vulnerable situation.
