Emanuel Hahn: Photographer

Emanuel Hahn was born in Saipan and has lived in Singapore, Cambodia, New York City, and Los Angeles. After working at a crypto startup, he realized that working in tech wasn’t for him. Emanuel had always loved photography and decided to pursue it professionally. He has since worked on topics such as the resilience of Asian American elders (TIME magazine), unique Asian American journeys (McDonald’s APA Heritage Month), Chinese Americans living in the Mississippi Delta (featured in the New York Times), and the Korean Uzbek community in Brooklyn. He is currently working on “Koreatown Dreaming”, a book that celebrates the contributions of small business owners in LA’s Koreatown. 

I spoke with Emanuel in August about how his Korean culture has been a source of comfort, his transition into photography, the ways that creative work can affect his mental health, and the beauty of allowing different cultures to interact with and influence one another. 

Photo courtesy of Emanuel Hahn

Rebecca: You've lived in a few different countries outside of the US. What brought you to each of those countries and what was your experience like in each country? 

Emanuel: I was born in Saipan, a small island next to Guam that's very popular with Korean and Japanese tourists. My dad used to work for a tourism company in South Korea, and he got posted to Saipan. Saipan is actually a US territory, so if you’re born there, you’re automatically given US citizenship. 

Saipan is a beautiful, tropical paradise and life there was peaceful initially. But in the 1990s, the Korean economy crashed, and my dad’s company went under. My parents lost all of their material possessions and decided to pursue an interest they had long considered: becoming missionaries. My dad had originally wanted to become a missionary in China, but he needed to learn Mandarin first, which brought them to Singapore. When my parents graduated from seminary in Singapore, the church that my parents were a part of considered China to be politically unsafe. Another missionary came from Cambodia and encouraged people to go there instead. This was in 1997, a few years after Cambodia opened up to the rest of the world after the Khmer Rouge genocide. 

In 1998, I was eight, and my family moved to Cambodia, so that my parents could start their missionary work. I attended a local Cambodian Chinese school in the mornings to learn Mandarin and Cambodian. Then my mom would homeschool me and my brother for a few hours, and afterwards, we had an English tutor come for an hour. For the rest of the day, we would read books or run around. We had a pretty large front yard, and we had a lot of animals that we would play with. We also lived 10 minutes from the beach, so we would go there every weekend. There weren’t a lot of tourists in Cambodia yet, so the beaches had beautiful white sand, and the water was pristine. Having this balance between a lot of school and reading as well as a lot of time in nature was a great way to grow up. 

When I turned 12, my parents wanted me and my brother to receive a more formal education. They rented out an apartment for us in Singapore, so that we could go to school there while they stayed in Cambodia. I spent the rest of my middle school and high school years in Singapore and then moved to New York for college. 

Rebecca: When you were in Cambodia or Singapore, did you feel a distinction between being Korean versus being Asian? 

Emanuel: I definitely felt very Korean because it was the only culture that I really knew. Most people in Asia don't necessarily think of themselves as Asians first; they feel more connected to the country they’re from. Even though I didn’t live in Korea when I was growing up, a lot of my life was oriented around Korean things like going to a Korean church, speaking Korean at home, eating Korean food, and watching Korean TV. From an early age, my whole life was very oriented in my parents’ culture. Whenever we moved around, we would always define ourselves as Korean. When I lived in Singapore, the church that we were a part of had seminary students from all over the world, and everyone defined themselves by where they had come from. 

This feeling became more salient when we moved to Cambodia, because the culture there is so different from Korean culture. My Korean culture was my safe space and my way of understanding myself when I was somewhere that felt foreign. Cambodia in 1997 was not a tourist destination like it is now. It was unstable politically, there were riots in the streets every night, and our neighbor was assassinated. I wouldn't call it a war zone, but it felt very dangerous and you could get in trouble just by being out in the streets. 

When I moved back to Singapore, I never thought of myself as Singaporean. Everyone would refer to me and my brother as the “Korean kids,” but not in a bad way. It was more out of fascination, because there weren’t many Koreans in Singapore at the time. Even in Singapore, my brother and I still went to a Korean church. That was a big part of our community and a source of comfort, especially because our parents weren't around. The Korean food that we ate after service was important in helping us retain our culture in the absence of our parents.

Rebecca: Have you felt like you’ve had to reconcile being Korean vs. Korean American vs. American? Or do you feel like these identities flow together pretty seamlessly for you? 

Emanuel: When I first moved to the States I had to learn what it meant to be American, and it was kind of a struggle initially. I didn't want to stick out, and I just wanted to be like everyone else. But some of the things I did set me apart. For example, the way I spoke was different, because in Singapore, we use British English. Instead of saying “waiting in line”, we would say “waiting in a queue” or instead of “elevator”, we would say “lift”. 

What was harder was understanding the American psyche. For instance, I had to figure out what people were getting at when they asked me “how’s it going?”. When I first came to the States, I would try to tell people how things were really going, but they didn't care. Also in college, people used a lot of pop culture references, but I didn’t know a single one. I didn’t watch a lot of TV growing up, and I didn’t have cable. I was a nerd in high school who was reading all the time, so it was hard to talk to people if they referenced a show or something from their childhood. People were always referencing Mean Girls, and I never understood their references. I have since watched the movie, and I “get it”.

I came to the States as almost a fully formed person. I’m a storyteller now, because I've always felt like I was standing on the outside and making commentary. It’s a blessing and a curse. I've lived in the States for 11 years, and over time I’ve become more American by virtue of spending more time here. Now I would say I feel pretty Korean American. This is the country where I stake my life on and where I want to build my life. It’s a huge land of opportunity here, especially with the work that I want to do. I wouldn’t say I blend in seamlessly in Korea, because I don’t necessarily look like a typical Korean person. My language skills are pretty proficient though, and I can get around pretty easily. It’s a blessing that I can go to Korea pretty often, and I’ve picked up a lot about the culture and norms from my family. It blows my mind when I meet Korean Americans who have never been to Korea. Obviously it's not their fault, but you miss out on so much if you don’t understand the country that your parents came from. 

Rebecca: After going to NYU and working your full-time job, how did you transition to becoming a photographer? 

Emanuel: I went to business school at NYU Stern, where I studied in finance. After college, I worked in tech, because I thought I could change the world through technology. But I quickly realized that a vast part of the industry is built on generating wealth. I wanted to do something that would make me happy, and I didn't want to work for anyone. Photography had always been a hobby, so I decided to take the leap and try pursuing it full time. The first two years were about trying to make enough money to pay rent and bills and maybe have some money left over for savings or travel. Those years, I was just making it each month. I never went into debt, but there were months where I only had a couple hundred dollars in my bank account, and I wasn’t always sure I had enough for the next month. But now I’ve gotten to a point where the money is stable. 

Rebecca: Have you always wanted to focus on the Asian diaspora in your work?  

Emanuel: Not really. When I first started, I focused more on the technical side of making a photo look good, and learning the settings, the lighting, and editing. But I have always been interested in what it means to be human, especially given the way that I grew up. In Cambodia, I was exposed to so much poverty, and the country had gone through a terrible genocide relatively recently. When I was there, I visited a museum in Phnom Penh, called Tuol Sleng, and it was a high school that was previously used as a torture center and has now been turned into a museum. As a kid, it really made me wonder how people could inflict such pain on each other. All of my classmates in Cambodia had to work while going to school - they couldn’t just have a childhood. I always felt weird that I could go home after school and just play all day.

But then I went to Singapore, and I was suddenly one of the poorest kids. Some of my friends weren’t Crazy Rich Asians rich, but their families were in the top 1% of Singapore. This huge gap in the human experience has always interested me. In Cambodia, there were students who didn’t have running water, and in Singapore, I had friends who lived in giant mansions with four bungalows attached. 

In high school in Singapore, I was part of the humanities program. This is rare in Singapore; everyone goes on the science track since that’s more practical. But I studied literature, philosophy, and economics and that opened my eyes to human expression and storytelling. You can learn so much about someone that you've never met through a book or media or film. 

After my photography career was more stable, I wanted to work on something a little more interesting and human-focused. In 2017, I met up with my friend Andrew Kung, who had also just left his job to become a photographer, and we talked about different projects that we wanted to work on. I threw out this idea of finding Asians in rural communities. I had read about Asian Americans who were breaking the mold as singers or artists, but their stories started to sound similar. Most of them came out of creative hubs like San Francisco, LA, and New York. This isn’t surprising, but I wanted to hear stories from somewhere different. Andrew’s parents met in North Carolina, so he was also interested in the south. We stumbled upon a Chinese community in the Mississippi Delta and completely funded everything ourselves. We worked on that story for over a year from pre-production to shooting to putting it together, and it was eventually published in the New York Times in 2018. 

That was a big validating moment for me and a turning point in my career. I realized that if you put your mind to a story that you care about and do it well and sincerely, people will respond. That’s how I realized the structure I needed for my photography career: one part has to be business-focused and the other has to be human-focused. The commercial arm funds my life and gives me the money to do the storytelling that I’m interested in. The project that came after was about Korean Uzbeks, which was more personal to me. I got deep into research, and there happened to be a Korean Uzbek community in Brooklyn. 

Rebecca: Can you tell me about your Koreatown Dreaming project?

Emanuel: After my project on Korean Uzbeks, I did more film work for nonprofits and really enjoyed it. It’s a natural extension from my work in photojournalism with a strong narrative approach. I moved to LA last year, because I wanted to work in film. I knew I wanted to work on something about Koreatown but I didn’t know what the angle was. I had a few ideas like gentrification, the impact of COVID, and the architecture of Koreatown. I would go to Koreatown and start shooting on the streets, because I had never seen them so empty before. Over time I realized I wasn’t connecting with anyone. So I started going into stores and talking to small business owners. Some began opening up to me, and telling me their life stories. I would take notes and take a photo of them at the end. Over time, I had six photo sets, but I wasn't sure what to do with them. I was in a creative rut and feeling down about myself, because I wasn’t working much. Earlier this year, I posted one of the photos on my Instagram, and people responded well to it. People were excited to read about the stories of Koreatown small business owners who they saw on a regular basis. I initially aimed for ten stories, and then I would move on with my life and do something else. As I shared these stories, there was good traction on Instagram, but I didn’t want to do anything bigger because I knew it would be a lot of work. But over time, I realized that this work was bigger than myself. There wasn’t any comprehensive body of work that documented the history of Koreatown through the lens of these small business owners. I realized I had a rare opportunity to tell the story of Koreatown. 

I initially aimed for 20 businesses, but then decided 40 would be more comprehensive. I successfully raised money on Kickstarter in July, and now I’m in the design process. This has been a labor of love, and it's taken over my life. I can't say that my mental health has been the best during this process, but now that I’m in the final stage, I'm so excited. When I see the photos laid out, I'm blown away at the amount of stories that exist in this book. 

Rebecca: How has hearing these stories and creating the book affected your mental health? 

Emanuel: When I'm working, I’m still empathizing, but I’m a bit more focused. After I did a few of these stories, I started to know what to look out for. That helps to separate the personal, emotional part of my brain from the part that’s like “I need to get this done.” I’ve heard so many stories and that helps me not get fixated on one person’s story. People talk about the hardships they’ve experienced, but also about how great things have been. They’re so proud of themselves when they reflect on the time they’ve been here. 90% of them came here to provide a better life for their kids and most of them have achieved this. It’s very heartwarming. 

It requires a lot of emotional energy to be engaged. During this project, I was the most exhausted I’ve ever been, both mentally and physically. Even if I only spend two hours with a store owner, it takes everything out of me. In the beginning, there were weeks where I would try and hit four stores in a row. But then the following week, I would feel so emotionally drained. People see the final images I take, but they don’t see how emotionally taxing the process is or the number of rejections I’ve gotten from people. Some store owners are quite rude and just tell me to go away. There are days when I’ve gone through multiple rejections, and I’ll lay on my couch and feel like my life is a failure. That sounds dramatic, but it does affect your morale. It was hard to feel motivated when I encountered setbacks, because I was working on this alone. No one was telling me I had to do this work; I had to find the motivation to research, reach out, and show up, and it was such a grind at the end. But I’ve gotten a lot of support from the community. Maybe 20% of the people I interviewed were through connections from the community, which was so helpful. 

This is one of the hardest things I’ve done, because it was a long process. I started in November 2020, but I got a mild case of COVID in January so I couldn’t do anything for awhile. In February, I started working again, and in March I began getting good responses from people. Now it’s August, so I’ve been working on this for almost nine months. It’s close to the end, but there is still work to be done with the design process. There’s proofing and getting the test prints, and then once the books arrive I have to ship them out and do more press. It never stops and I’m not complaining, but when I first started, I didn’t realize how long the process would be. But I am so grateful to have the opportunity to tell these stories and bring them to a wider audience. 

Rebecca: How have these projects influenced how you think about Korean American identity? 

Emanuel: Sometimes people want to keep Korean identity or other ethnic identities pure and untouched and authentic. People don’t want their food fusionized or their culture reduced to something that’s not representative. That’s valid, but I’ve learned that immigrant cultures adapt really well. When immigrants bring a different culture to their existing culture, it leads to something really fascinating. For instance, the Korean Uzbeks that I met have their own version of Korean cuisine, and it's completely different from traditional Korean cuisine. They didn't have access to certain ingredients in Central Asia, so they had to improvise. 

There’s a Korean Uzbek restaurant in New York called Cafe Lily; they have a dish called kuksi, which is based on the Korean version of guksu (noodles). The taste profile is completely different, but it's the perfect summer noodle dish. Another example - my great uncle lives in Buenos Aires and was part of a wave of Korean immigrants who ended up in Latin America. He’s been there for 40 years and when I met him for the first time two years ago, his family cooked up a feast for us. The meal brought together the best parts of Korean and Argentinian food - bbq meat with Korean banchan, and it was incredible. 

I’d argue that a lot of Asian American communities now are creating things that are new, and that’s something that can be embraced. We’re birthing new cultures and creating things that wouldn’t exist if different cultures were siloed from one another. Growing up, you want to be one thing because that’s safe and provides a sense of comfort. You just want to be American or Korean, because it’s easier to live your life that way. But in a globalized world, you have to contend with the different parts of yourself. Maybe that’s a privilege, because not everyone has that opportunity, and these different parts of yourself make life richer.