My project started from a documentary: Havana Divas (2018). “The story focus on Caridad and Georgina, who had learned the art of Cantonese Opera in Havana as a young age and performed as divas for over a decade before their lives were changed by Fidel Castro’s revolution.”It is a rare piece that brings together a Chinese art and two Cuban families, and a story shared by many immigrant families in Central and South Americas.
I had a deep emotional connection and resonance after watching this documentary since I can feel the hardship and loneliness behind them. With the development of globalization and the new media era, people’s ideology and values are influenced by information from all over the world. Especially the young age generation they are more willing to accept different cultures and are willing to study and live abroad. However, Being a foreigner in another country is full of loneliness and insecurity. That’s one of the reasons why in nowadays people are paying increasing attention to their national identity and sense of belonging. Boardman(2020) point out that a sense of belonging is crucial to our life satisfaction, happiness, mental and physical health, and even longevity. It gives us a sense of purpose and meaning. So I became more and more interested in how did they integrate into such an unfamiliar environment especially the social environment at that time was not as open as it is now. And they still overcome difficulties to have their own family and life. I wanted to dive into the topic and search for cultural backgrounds and the stories that happened at that time.
“Citizenship is something that has to do with the everyday life while national identity is something that has to do with feelings and memories and not necessarily with the place where someone was born and grown up.”