Redefining The Bakhu—And The Great American Road Trip—Through Self-Portraiture
A photographer confronts the childhood discomfort she felt wearing traditional Mustangi clothing in public by traveling across the country and posing for portraits in them.
When I was growing up in the early 2000s in Jersey City, N.J., I was, for the most part, ashamed of my family's cultural heritage. I felt the heat of embarrassment when substitute teachers butchered my name during morning roll call and when my large, boisterous family piled into restaurants shouting at one another in foreign dialects. But my most vivid memories of my shame took place on a train.
My family immigrated to the U.S. from Nepal. We didn't own a car, so
