Vikesh Kapoor

United States

Series: See You at Home

We are now in an age of turbulent national discourse on immigrants’ rights and who is truly American. My ongoing project, “See You at Home,” is a personal narrative that centers on family, memory and the myth and melancholy surrounding the American Dream.
My parents, Shailendra and Sarla Kapoor, immigrated from India in 1973, settling in a small town of 10,000 people in rural Pennsylvania. They are one of only a few immigrant families in the region. Although they left India for a better life, like many immigrants from the East, the shift from a collectivist nation to an individualistic one led to isolation just as much as it led to freedom. As they grow old in Pennsylvania with both my sister and I no longer living nearby, their isolation only becomes more apparent to me. “See You At Home“ explores this dichotomy using images of their current life in America imbued with family album photographs and memories of life back in India. At the root of this narrative is my relationship to them as their Americanized, first-generation son, my caretaking responsibilities as they age and the countless unanswered questions I have about their journey as immigrants.