When I started this series, it was literally about identification. I was exploring the fragile & fragmented stories of my and my parents' sudden flight from Vietnam, in 1978. The first pieces in this series draw from a 1 x 2 inch photograph which was used as legal identification for immigration purposes), but it is also about psychological, emotional, ethnic and nationalistic identification, and the utter difficulty of identifying for refugees, for whom the rough & abrupt process of fleeing takes so much. The image - which is of my mother holding me while an identification sign rudely interrupts our embrace - is one of the few vestiges remaining of that period in our lives.

I used materials and processes that described my process of discovery as well as the nature of memory. I used fragile and impermanent materials like rice paper and charcoal, incorporated delicate Xerox transfers that never seemed to pick up enough

This series was first shown in a group show, Piecing Together, with the work of three other Vietnamese American women artists exploring similar themes.

I've continued to develop the Identification series to tell a stories about immigration, family history, and the ambivalence of nationality, but most of all, to tell stories about process.