The Family Archive: A Living Autoethnography

by Amanda Faye Lacson

In a world where truth and history are up for debate, I am deeply curious about the breadth of what we’ve been taught. Whose stories are missing from official histories? What do we do with the gift and burden of history, looking back from the 21st century?

I am a first-generation Filipina-American writer, photographer, historian and teaching artist. As my own family’s historian, I have preserved photographs, letters and videos; recorded oral histories; and created photobooks, video narratives, collages to bring the stories out of the archive and make them relevant to the next generation.

Until now, I have presented my family archive through first-person narratives, and at face value. In these pages, I am interested in thickening the narrative by bringing in historical context; related media from other genres (such as memoir, poetry, drama, film clips); and by analyzing the social, psychological and embodied impacts of the story.

I have organized this autoethnography in multimedia collections. Each collection stems from one piece of my family archive: a story, a photo, or a document. I explore the archival material itself, then dive into global, political, and artistic connections to the material. I am not only interested in preserving my family’s past but to interrogate it, as well as connect it to the world today.

Though I have organized the pages in each collection, it is a loose organization and you should feel free to bounce around. Go toward what calls out to you, fall down the rabbit hole. 

I am calling this a living autoethnography, because as news changes, as I learn more about my own family history, I will want to make revisions and more connections. Sometimes I am left with more questions than answers.

My hope is that this project inspires others to look at their own archives, examine how they intersect with the world, and how they remain relevant today. 

Prospective Immigrants, Please Note

How U.S. colonization, laws, and broken promises impacted my family’s migration. How they play out beyond my family today.