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Statement
BORN: THE VALLEY, LOS ANGELES, CA
It’s funny. I don’t really identify with being from being from New Jersey even though I was born there. I grew up in California, LA. I feel I’m more Californian than anything else—rather than Chinese, rather than east coast, anything. There’s something about California.
The thing is… when I was growing up in NJ, we left when I was eight, I was really shy and I didn’t talk to people. I was kind of bullied but in the way you are in elementary school when kids pick on any way that you’re different. I was different because I was Chinese and I was picked on. So I picked on this girl because she wet her pants. So I’m just as bad as the kids picking on me.
When I got to California, it was a conscious thing, I decided to change. I all of a sudden got clothes I thought were cool and totally changed the way I looked. And all of a sudden I wasn’t shy and I became who I still am today. I was born in California, version 2.0 at any rate!
I no longer stuck out because of my ethnicity or because I was shy. Instead, I could stand out because I was funny or fun. I was me. That was the thing.
—Eric Huang

All images copyright Ellen Jacob

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