Before my grandfather died, he emailed a Word document to all of us—his children and grandchildren—titled, THE TRIBE. It was, as he described it, an autobiography: a collection of stories passed down to him by his grandparents, typed from memory. He made it clear that it was "not for publication"; he simply wanted us to "know who and what kind of people [our] ancestors were."¹

From this document, I was drawn to the stories of the American side of the family. I Knew Them Only Through Pictures is an accordion book that emerged from this fascination, part of my ongoing exploration into migration and identity. Using my grandfather's words, I tell the story of Carroll Madison Smith, of Clarksville, Tennessee, who came to the Philippines, met, and wed Margarita Latorre. They had two children: my grandfather's mother, Rosa, and her brother, Carroll Madison Smith Jr.

My grandfather, Rosa, Carroll Jr., Carroll Sr., and Margarita are all gone. How then do I tell their story? Trinh T. Minh-ha once described "a speaking that reflects on itself and can come very close to a subject without, however, seizing or claiming it."² She also says, "Every element constructed in a film refers to the world around it, while having at the same time a life of its own." I held onto this as a way to think through the use of image and text in my piece—not as illustrations of a larger point, but as elements that carry meaning on their own. "Speaking nearby" allowed me to describe what I saw without claiming to speak for the people in the photographs or the stories themselves. I did this by literally using my grandfather's words.

The resulting book, I Knew Them Only Through Pictures, is a study of identity, belonging, and home. I created the piece by layering family photographs and excerpts from my grandfather's autobiography. He served as a conduit for a story that is transcontinental and transgenerational. By embedding his words into my piece, I chose not to narrate over him, but rather to speak alongside him—to speak nearby. Somehow, the words became mine too; I do indeed only know my American forebears from pictures.

The book's form affords non-linearity, for unfolding and refolding, for collapse and expansion. Unlike a traditionally bound book, the accordion form resists beginnings and endings. It allows for looping, for an overlapping of time and space. I wanted to make visible the nearness between myself and my American ancestors—my great-great-grandfather and great-granduncle—one of whom planted roots in Queens. That is, quite literally, a thirty-minute subway ride away from where I now live in Brooklyn. The distance is generational and geographic, but it is also startlingly proximate. It disrupted my assumptions about migration and belonging. It made clear to me that what we consider distant is often very near. But also, there is an irony in this: that I have roots in America and not the other way around.

Rather than offer a coherent or authoritative narrative, I wanted the piece to feel partial and suggestive, unresolved, but somehow also resolved. I did not aim to explain who I am or where I come from, but to gesture toward the questions that continue to shape my relationship to my Filipino-ness and home. In this way, the book functions as an object that, in Trinh's words, "does not point to an object as if it is distant from the speaking subject,"³ but rather holds that distance in suspension, allowing the reader-viewer to enter and exit its folds at multiple points.