Emily Schiffer

Push and Pull

My husband's parents left Cameroon for New York before he was born. Raised in the US, he had limited contact with his parent’s country or relatives. In 2011, we traveled to Cameroon and spent several months getting to know his family of strangers.

I deeply connected with our family members, and, as a white foreigner, I aroused a colonial legacy of wariness and suspicion. This combination of intimacy and distance forced me to consider family dynamics from various perspectives. I photographed as we navigated our relatives' love, assumptions, expectations, and frustrations. What began as a series of private photographs, transitioned into a project about the impact of migration on family identity and relationships. I am interested in the evolving dynamics between relatives: those who leave, those who stay behind, those who are born abroad, and those who join a family through marriage.

They all told him to cut his hair. Clearly, it offended them. Braiding served two purposes: it quieted the family and encouraged the hair's growth.
   
The cousins welcomed us, embracing us into their lives with firm hugs, love, and unspoken expectation.
   
Relatives, living and dead, decorate the walls of Mami Suzanne's home. Rhyanne watches her reflection next to them while she waits for her friends to arrive.
     
  
White dolls are common toys in Cameroon. Children often learn to braid on their synthetic hair.
   
Lisette carefully places two year-old Preston into his mother's fancy car.
   
Wilfred and Preston, brothers, catch their breath, moments after a sand fight.
     
  
Thierry in the heat of a particularly humid morning.
   
Mami Suzanne spends hours harvesting food on Thierry's father's land.
   
Tears. Boys don't understand the pain of beautiful hair. They just sit around with unmolested scalps and tease.
     
  
"I have my health" people commonly responded to "Ca va?" We saw motorcycle accidents several times a week. Yet it was witnessing Ton Ton Clarvice suffering in a hospital without pain killers after an accident with an eighteen-wheeler truck, that we finally came close to understanding.
   
Cousin Pierre carries suitcases out of a relative's home in the village.
   
Ton Ton Louis, tests a lightbulb for a customer in his store.
     
  
Cousin Judith with her son.
   
Two year-old Preston walked confidently into the barber shop, but began to cry when he saw the cutter. Safely in his mother's arms, Preston submits himself to a hair cut.
   
Rhyanne, in Mami Suzanne's living room.
     
  
Anaille naps on Mami O's bed.
   
Judith's son enjoys a lollipop while watching his reflection in a vinyl change purse.
   
Ton Ton Emmanuel in the village gives us his address so we can keep in touch.
     
  
The dust we left behind in the village.
   
Chrystelle, a distant cousin, at the beach.