Nyingv Jae

• What is your personal definition of home? What experiences have influenced/continue to influence and shape your understanding of home, belonging, and safety? (Are there any core memories?)(this can be a time/event, a place/location, an item, a tradition/way of knowing etc)

Home is an experience to me, a feeling, sometimes a memory. As someone whose reality is significantly shaped by complex trauma, I’ve found that home is wherever I can actually be present without the itch to escape or tune out my immediate surroundings. Some days home feels quiet, uncrowded, a space where I can be with just me, the sky, feel the wind on my face and the ground beneath my feet. Home is also in all the moments, places and people that offer me the safety to be soft, go slow, breathe deep, have fun and allow me to take off all my masks and hang up all the hats I have to wear to survive in this world. As I’ve grown, I’ve learned that there is a difference between belonging and familiarity– that just because places or people feel familiar, that doesn’t mean they’re inherently safe. In every form, home is sacred to me, so I fiercely protect them.

• What particular place(s) do you feel at home, deeply connected and safe at?

Lost Lake - Hood River, Oregon 

Swimming far out into beautiful blue waters of Lost Lake while the sun kisses my skin with majestic Mt. Hood watching over me in the background. I will never forget how free and unburdened my body + spirit felt just floating there on the surface.  I’d always look forward to munching on homemade snacks post-swim and sketching under the towering trees lining the lake. Whenever I meditate on home, this is one of the first moments I return to. 

May Valley - Richmond, CA 

This is the neighborhood I spent the first decade of my life in - we were the only multigenerational, loud Southeast Asian refugee family in a middle-class suburban, predominantly white neighborhood. I was raised by my young mom, my ong dae + guv maa, and guv taaix – three generations. The house I grew up in is still home to my grandparents. I learned to ride my bike and rollerblade from my neighbor/friend next door. Our back yard was a jungle full of herbs, trees, flowers and so much fruit, becoming a sanctuary to chickens, a rabbit, the local deer population and a long list of birds and other wildlife. Spending early evenings being surrounded by the green rolling hills dotted with old oak trees, watching the bay fog creep in has always been magical to me.

• What parts of your personal/family/collective histories help you feel grounded in (or disconnected to) your idea and understanding of home? When/if you feel disconnected to your cultural community, where do you go and/or what do you do to feel safe and accepted? 

Being Iu Mien and Khmu has shaped my understanding of home from the beginning. 

• What aspects of your identity do you feel most connected to? What parts feel the most challenging to feel connected to and how does this impact your understanding of home and belonging?

I feel most connected to my queerness and gender expansiveness as well as my fatness and chronically ill body. I think a part of this is because I’ve been able to shape my relationship to these identities on my own terms. I also have a strong community of lifelong friends, loved ones and chosen family who see, affirm and share these lived realities with me and have grown alongside me through all of the transformation, learning, and messiness I’ve moved through to accept myself as all of the above. On the other hand, my cultural identities of being Iu Mien and Khmu have always felt a bit elusive to me even while I now believe that I am and always will be both. 

• Time isn’t linear–spiritually speaking, we carry our ancestors and descendants with us everyday. How do you hope to contribute to the healing, growth, and transformation of your people’s collective understanding of home, place, and belonging? Through your art, how do you hope to help your ancestors and descendants find home and feel + know safety?

I hope that simply through living my life in alignment with my dreams and what brings me joy, purpose, pleasure, ease, I can offer an example of what can be possible for others like me.

• What role does art/creativity play in your life? Is this connected to your journey of belonging? If yes, how?

My art and creativity have been foundational in helping me to establish a strong relationship with my own self-knowing and intuition. My artistic vision is what brings beauty, curiosity, play and purpose into my life. All these things inevitably inform how I show up in the world and how I engage in every aspect of my life from my relationships to my home, to my passions and heartswork. Creativity keeps me alive.

• What is one dream you have for your community? 

I dream of artists and creatives being completely sustained, supported and celebrated for the gifts we contribute to our communities through our unique perspectives and experiences. I dream of queer, trans, gender expansive people to be safe, seen and honored in full. I dream of deep, loving community connection for all of us that extends beyond the confines of imperialism, toxic patriarchal tradition and cultural gatekeeping, and further holds space for every variation of Mien-ness and Khmu-ness to belong. 

• How has this project influenced your understanding of community, belonging, home and/or safety?

It's shown me that these are all things that I have the power to shape and create for myself, just like my art. If something doesn't yet exist, that in itself bears the magic of possibility and how exciting that I get to bring it to life -- we all do. This project has also connected me to a web of fellow community artists and educators. For a lot of my young adulthood, I felt alone and struggled to envision a reality where I could be sustained by my creativity. This project has definitely offered some significant healing around that for me.

• Is there anything on your horizon or forthcoming for you as an artist/storyteller?

There’s always something forthcoming – keep up with me at nyingv-jae.com