This A-Profiler we bring you Wing Young Huie, a photographer who chronicled a 9 month journey across the United States in an exhibit and later selected works featured in the book "Looking for Asian America: An Ethnocentric Journey." The youngest of six siblings and only one not born in China, Huie shares his experience of growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, what his parents thought of his interest in photography, and what projects he will exhibit next.

Your site URL:
www.wingyounghuie.com

What is your ethnicity?
Chinese, youngest of six and the only one not born in China.

How did you get started in photography? Growing up as a kid did you always have an interest in photography?
I wanted to be a writer growing up, but bought a camera when I was 20 and became fascinated. I was already enrolled in the print journalism program at the University of Minnesota and considered switching majors to photography but decided to stick with journalism and freelanced as a writer and photographer after graduation.

You grew up in Duluth, Minnesota. What was that like?
Had a very normal childhood in Duluth. My father owned a Chinese restaurant where I started working at age 12, keeping the books, waiting on tables, cashiered and cooked, until my father retired when I was 17. I played oboe played in the high school band and orchestra.

What did your parents think of your interest in photography?
My parents were a bit concerned that I wasn't going to be able to make a living at it. My mother even offered to buy me a hamburger stand in my mid-20s but I turned her down.

Your current book "Looking for Asian America: An Ethnocentric Journey" chronicles your 9 month journey across the U.S. through photos and essays. What did "ethnocentric" mean to you before the journey and has the meaning changed since?
I doubt the word "ethnocentric" ever passed my lips until I worked on the book. I went from being unaware of the ethnocentric makeup of any room I was in to being hyper aware. I can't say being one way or the other is better.

You shot over 7000 photos on your journey, how did you decide which photos to showcase?
My wife Tara I first picked out the the several hundred that popped out at me and then over four years whittled those down to the hundred in the book. Also involved in selecting images were Anita Gonzalez who curated the original exhibition for the Minnesota Museum of American Art, and Todd Orjala, my editor at the University of Minnesota Press.

My basic process is to pick out the ones that look the most interesting regardless of content. The next step, which never really ends, is to try understand what it is that I've done. I'm still trying to understand the work as a whole. I think photographs are organic their meanings change as you change.

I've understand you prefer to shoot with film rather than digital. What is it about shoot to film that you enjoy?
Several conscious reasons come to mind. I'm old fashioned, it's what I'm used to. Authenticity (I come from a generation that believed what they saw in a photograph really happened. The current generation automatically assumes that the photographed has been manipulated). No one really knows how long a digital file will last: film is still the most durable. Whatever makes things easier comes at a cost. The ultimate costs of digital are yet unknown, but the loss of our faith in photographic reality has already happened. That loss is profound and immeasurable.

What projects are upcoming for you?
I'm working on a one-mile long public exhibition in Boyes Hot Springs, California, near Sonoma, that has a large migrant community, that will exhibited in fall 2008. Also working on a six-mile long public installation in St. Paul, Minnesota along University Avenue that will include large photographs and projected images in store windows‹to premier in 2010.

When you have free time, what do you enjoy doing? Hobbies? Interests?
I've been playing in the same weekly pick up basketball group for 15 years.

What advice do you have for aspiring photographers out there looking to find their own Asian America?
Like Nike says: Just do it.

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This issue of A-Profiler is brought to you by Nelson Wong.
Special thanks to Wing Young Huie and Heather Skinner.

Photos used with permission.
Copyright retained by original copyright holder(s).