For the Toishan chapter, I have been tracing threads of my great grandfather’s immigration records of when he first came to the US in 1922. Through family stories, rumors, and digging into US immigration archives, I am discovering threads of family secrets that are now being unraveled. My great grandfather traveled to Yuma arizona in 1932- which was likely when he crossed over to the border of Mexico to start up a grocery store and met a woman and had another family there. I am currently trying to contact my half cousins and will be taking my grandpa to visit his home village in Toishan in 2026.
In 2022, I found a photograph of my grandma cooking on a roof, wearing a shirt she made herself. I later learned that she had lived on a roof in hong kong during her teenage years in the early 60s, on 宝灵街 [Bowring St] and 廟街 [Temple St] in 油麻地 [Yau Ma Tei district]. They called it 天台屋 [rooftop homes], which was common back then for landlords to rent out their rooftops for cheap. They were usually made out of tarp and bamboo. In the picture. The photo was taken by her great uncle’s son, who worked an office job at the time and could afford a camera.
We decided to go visit the building, the door to the stairwell was open that morning so we were able to walk in and go up to the roof. My hope is to use projection mapping to create a temporary projected exhibition up on the roof of which my grandma used to live on. While the building is still around, it would be a dream of mine to share my grandma's rooftop home stories with the current neighbors and residents, and to gather more stories about the history of the building.
