“I Am Because of Us”

Ryan Stopera

Minneapolis, Minnesota | Chinese/Mixed Race | He/Him/His

I grew up in Columbia Heights, Minnesota. My mother is Chinese. She immigrated here from Taiwan in her early twenties. My father is Polish and grew up in Northeast Minneapolis. He passed away two years ago.  I’m mixed race. I also grew up with an older sister who passed away 14 years ago.  

These experiences of loss led me to become a social worker. I worked on mental and chemical health issues, and did group therapy with individuals and families that were experiencing homelessness. This led me to community organizing where I began using art as a way to amplify stories. 

Until then I really hadn’t done much art even though all of my family members are artists. My father was a graphic artist, my sister was a photographer and a filmmaker, and my mother is a makeup artist. My whole family are artists. I guess I was the black sheep; until I fell into it. 

The idea of making ACCENT as a book came from wanting to make something you could touch, feel, and flip through, or put on your coffee table and have a family conversation. I wanted something physical because everything visual today is on a 3 to 4 inch screen on your phone, and we don’t connect with it the way we do with something printed. And I knew I didn’t want to just make a bunch of prints, so I made a book. I wanted to connect with people like me. People that identify as Asian American, and to have conversations about what that means to us, because too often that conversation gets overlooked. So the best part of creating this book over the past year was talking to people in my community, connecting with friends, and making new friends.