Growing up, I was always enthralled by my family’s stories of their upbringing among the verdant hillsides and lush forests that surrounded their quaint village on the island of Cebu, Philippines. Just as captivating were the scents of pancit, lechon baboy and adobo drifting through the hallways of my grandparent’s former home in Adair County, Kentucky – the same home my mother and her four siblings were raised in for the better part of their childhoods during her family’s arduous path to naturalization. The lilting speech patterns of my family’s bisaya passed through my ears as I absorbed everything I could to piece together my identity. I was instilled with a sense of pride for a background from which I was far removed growing up in the hills of Kentucky. 
These stories and traditions handed down to me shaped my own childhood and the way that I interpret my surroundings, and the following images, photographed collaboratively with my family members in my grandparent's current residence in Bluffton, South Carolina, connect past and present-interpolating these memories visually while communicating elements of Filipino cultural identity in relation to my relative's lived experiences.