Charlie Caulfield & Michael McNulty's apartment: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Charlie Caulfield & Michael McNulty: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Charlie Caulfield: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Charlie Caulfield & Michael McNulty: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Charlie Caulfield & Michael McNulty: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023
"I have a complicated relationship with my family, which means I have a complicated relationship with my racial and ethnic identity. I haven’t spoken to my mother in eight years, and I didn’t just lose contact with her. I lost my connection to half of my family, my Japanese surname, and my sense of belonging in the AAPI community.
My mother’s half of the family was capital J.A., Japanese-American. Those two words held equal weight. The Cherry Blossom Festival was just as important as the 4th of July. They called Inari “footballs” and Danmuji “sweaty socks”. When the women married, they took their white husband’s surnames but gave their children middle names that could be spelled with kanji. The older members had been through internment camps in Arkansas but never talked about it. These new traditions were passed down to me, along with the precious heirlooms of upturned eyes, an oval face, and fine black hair. But when the family collectively cut me off at age 16, it felt more like I had been thrown a cheap t-shirt that read: “My Mom Abandoned Me and All I Got Was This Asian Face”.
My dad is white. He’s the recessive gene, the European splotch on ancestry.com, and the reason behind the harsh angles of my nose. If my dad came to pick me up from a playdate, people assumed I was adopted. We barely share a freckle, let alone any prominent features. So despite not speaking a single word of Japanese, nor ever going to Japan, in the 88.1% white city I spent my childhood in, I was fully Japanese. Because of this, because I was always called “Asian Maya” before “Maya”, because I was prodded with questions like “where are you really from?” or told that I looked “just like Lucy Liu”, I identify as Japanese first, white second.
Now I have two sons who are ¼ Chinese, ¼ Japanese, and ½ white. They were adopted by a Korean woman and a Scottish man (who can actually trace his lineage back to the same clan as my family). Like me, they are growing up in a majority white enclave, but they have deep roots to their heritage that are not as easily severed as mine. The oldest is learning Korean over facetime with his halmoni, and the youngest is being fitted with a hanbok for his 100th day celebration. My partner Michael and I will always be present in their lives if they want to learn more about our Chinese and Japanese cultures, respectively. Oftentimes it feels like the shared gene between half-asians is nagging self-doubt. A feeling that you don’t belong. All I can hope is that my children didn't inherit that."

Charlie Caulfield & Michael McNulty: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Acudus Aranyian & Colum Bowyer: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 2023

Acudus Aranyian: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 2023

Colum Bowyer: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 2023

Kate Ray: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 2023
"There’s a lot of pressure, especially in the food world, to constantly perform your cultural identity. At the same time, Anthony’s childhood comfort foods are kasha, olivye, vareniki, and mine are scallion pancakes and potstickers along with meatloaf and PB&J. How do we share these foods with our child and teach him about where he comes from without falling into American melting pot tropes?
Anthony grew up in Russia and Ukraine and came to Brooklyn in middle school, and I’m the interracial product of a Chinese-American mom who lived her whole life in the States and a white American dad who grew up in East Africa and Switzerland. My mom always cooked us the most “American” dishes like meatloaf and mac & cheese, while her mom made Chinese food and taught Chinese cooking in L.A. — even though cooking isn’t something she learned until after emigrating. I began cooking when I stopped eating meat as a teenager, so my preparation of my grandmother’s dishes signify hers in taste and nostalgia more than literal reproduction. Maybe because of all that, I have an ambivalent relationship to authenticity in dishes. I mix cuisines liberally, guided by my own palate.
We went to Ukraine in April, and Miro loved the tvorog and cabbage and even the pickled mushrooms. Ultimately we’re not trying to manage his tastes or taste memories. We will cook the things we love and hope he discovers what he loves as well."

Kate Ray's wonderful cooking, 2023

Kate Ray, Anthony Volodkin, & Miroslov Ray: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 2023

Anthony Volodkin, & Miroslov Ray: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 2023

Kate Ray & Miroslov Ray: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 2023

Kate Ray, Anthony Volodkin, & Miroslov Ray: Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 2023

Eric Yang & Charlie Gillette: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Eric Yang: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Charlie Gillette: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023

Eric Yang & Charlie Gillette: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023
"We met acting in a film together, playing boyfriend and girlfriend in a short called 'Ttal'. The film is about navigating the cultural and generational gaps that exist when you're in an interracial relationship. Many aspects of the film came true in our real lives once we started dating. Eric grew up partially in the US and partially in China and I grew up in a multicultural household with my dad's side of the family being Chilean and my mom's side being mostly German. Both of us speak multiple languages and have experienced life in other countries. While we have a lot of differences, we've found they actually serve as points of connection and shared experience as well. I think we both share a love of new experiences and a curiosity about the world that comes from having that kind of upbringing. I was born in Germany and spent the first three years of my life there before moving to Miami where my dad's siblings and parents lived. Miami is so multicultural and family gatherings would be half in English and half in Spanish. After my family moved to upstate New York when I was 10, I began to grapple with my identity, where my Latina roots often went unnoticed or misunderstood because of the way I look. For years, I silenced this part of me. Now, my work is driven by a commitment to explore and express the diverse narratives that have sculpted me, using my voice and my craft to weave together the threads of my identity into a narrative that speaks of unity in diversity."

Eric Yang & Charlie Gillette: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2023