Gabrielle Widjaja
AMERICAN BORN TO CHINESE-INDONESIAN PARENTS

“My Asian-American experience is defined by memorizing the lyrics to Jay Chou songs without knowing their translations, and learning how to play mahjong, because my Mandarin proficiency starts at Chinese numbers and stops at cardinal directions. The exciting part is that one’s relationship to culture is never clearly defined. It ebbs and flows; it is constantly evolving.”

Art has always been a medium to not only express a person’s identity and journey, but also to challenge the complexities of the world at large. In recent years, amid growing discussions of media representation, defining political identities, and attacks on both people and lands, the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have been challenged to respond to these complexities, individually and collectively.
This year, for Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month, YES! asked nine illustrators to create original work responding to the following questions:
How are you connecting with your AAPI heritage right now?
What part of your AAPI heritage brings you the most pride or joy?