Discovering one's family roots can be life-changing. That's exactly what happened to a Canadian artist, who came to San Francisco to work. Ho Tam's artist-in-residency in Chinatown took an unexpected turn when he went on a journey to find out more about himself and his family.
Tam, who is from Vancouver, came to San Francisco in September for a residency program at the Chinese Cultural Center at 41 Ross in Chinatown.
"The residency have helped me. They've given me this chance to sort of discover myself or my history," Tam said. "My father never spoke much about his family history. So, when he passed away, I became very interested."
He had a piece of a paper, the only information he would have when he started to research his family roots. On that paper, an address that took him to Marysville, California. Tam found out he once had a great-grandfather and grandfather there. Both have passed away, but he didn't know if there were any relatives left on that side of his family.
That's when he found Kimberly Wing Naughton, of Auburn, and Julie Hing-Pacheco of San Jose. Cousins he didn't know about until two months ago. They met for the first time at Tam's gallery opening in Chinatown
"We share a great grandfather. He had four wives."
All three of them were on their own journey, doing their own research before finding each other.
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"Like there are puzzles and the puzzles come together. But when you find a piece that's a gem, it's like an archeological dig," Hing-Pacheco said.
"What happened here is just unimaginable for me. And now I have like the whole family, like tree." Tam said.
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Both Ho and Julie have created elaborate family trees. They've pieced together their genealogy through post-its, drawings and pictures. Tam said he may turn his family tree into some piece of art, but he's still not sure what that will look like.
"A lot of my work has dealt with sort of the Chinese diaspora and identity and history," he said. "I seldom put myself in my art, but this is my, I guess, my life becomes my art."
Ho Tam's artist residency runs through Nov. 30 at 41 Ross in San Francisco Chinatown at the Chinese Cultural Center.
