Emily Taing

"The donut shop is not just a business, but an extension of the home my parents built for me. Like many homes, a place of both complexity and comfort. Never perfect, but often refuge. Barely closed, and always welcoming."

- Emily Taing, Best Donuts, Santa Clara, CA

Huynh’s current work is informed by her experience as a refugee of Cambodian
and Chinese descent from Vietnam. Inspired by her family’s migration story,
personal research, and interviews with Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees
and immigrants, Huynh makes drawings on pink donut boxes and cross-stitches
images of personalized California license plates with unanglicized names. Her
work unpacks the complexities of immigration, displacement, and cultural
assimilation. Each drawing or cross-stitched piece is meant to be a sensitive
portrayal of a unique personal story. Close to 90% of California’s donut shops are
mom-and-pop businesses run by Cambodian immigrants or Cambodian
Americans (Khmericans). The trend that links pink boxes with donuts can be
traced back to the Khmerican donut ecosystem. Ultimately,
Huynh’s work is rooted in the practice to unravel ideas of cultural representations and
stereotypes, to challenge how we consume and interpret ethnographic signifiers, and to de-center whiteness in constructing visual and historical narratives.