Emily Hanako Momohara
We Belong 2
2021
Columbus, OH
The We Belong billboards challenge the pervasive “forever foreigner” attitudes towards AAPI communities. Emily Hanako Momohara uses photographs of second and third-generation Japanese Americans from the 1940s and 1950s in ideal American tableaus. A young boy in a cowboy costume smiles for the camera. A child upon arriving at school places her hand over her heart while saying the Pledge of Allegiance. These young Americans who are part of the widely known “Greatest Generation” are still seen as foreigners or are invisible entirely in our collective memory. The We Belong billboards ask viewers to see the longevity of AAPI in the US and their place of the American story.