Discovering my family’s history is my “self”…my story. I know very little about the Yanson side (my dad’s family). My dad barely talked about his childhood. He mentioned once or twice that it was a violent & tense time for Baltimore with painful memories. When my dad passed away in 2017, my biggest regret was never asking him more about the Yanson side. I simply have no one to ask either- my grandparents died before I was born & my dad’s siblings didn’t have much to tell me that I didn’t already know. My first instinct was to go to: ancestry.com- it turns out that it was hard to trace back my roots very far because my last name was changed 2 separate times & the country where my family came from was unclear due to the multiple border changes in Eastern Europe. All I had to work with were fuzzy memories of stories my dad told me & old film negatives that I could barely even see. These difficulties in identifying my heritage are my borders & boundaries: both personal & physical. My family heritage is, for the most part, up to my imagination. What I do know is where I come from: I am from Baltimore. Baltimore is by no means close to perfect & gets a bad rep of being dirty, dangerous, & corrupt. I see so much good about Baltimore, but I would be lying if I said that this “bad rep” is false. Baltimore has been struggling with the same issues over decades. My dad saw injustices to African Americans while growing up in the 60s. His neighborhood was one of the first in Baltimore to be desegregated. As a result, there was lot of tension & violence due to the systemic racism that persists even today. I saw Baltimore undergo these same issues a couple years ago with the death of Freddie Grey. I want to fully acknowledge my privilege of being white & living on the Baltimore city/Baltimore County line. I must realize that at some point in my family history, they took part of the “white flight” to the suburbs. I cannot change my family’s past, but I can change my future. My dad raised me as an advocate for what I think is right & to work hard for what I strive for. What I am coming to realize is that I can use my role as an architect to help transform my city to an equal & just place for all people of different races, orientations, sexes, & religions. I designed a Baltimore Revitalization Plan, am an active participant in various peaceful protests, & am applying to Grad schools hoping to achieve a master’s in architecture with a focus on social justice. My borders & boundaries of finding out my roots & where I came from led me to where I am today. My imagination helped me sort out my past & will guide me into my future. Thus, my “self” project consists of a video & an expressive self-portrait. The video shows my journey to finding out my past & my expressive self-portrait is a personal reflection of that process.
