Zhen Zhen and Ling shared a crib at the Suzhou Social Welfare Home in China. One fateful day in 1996, a group of Americans came and met their daughters for the first time.  Zhen Zhen was renamed Sadie by her Jewish mother, Myra.  Ling was renamed Claudia by her Roman Catholic mother, Ginny.  Lucky for them, the mothers became friends and both live in New York City.  Sadie and Claudia remained friends and see each other about once a year.

Becoming is an observational, longitudinal documentary study of the lives of Sadie, Claudia and other Chinese girls and their adopted families in contemporary America. We first meet them as 3 year olds in 1999.  In 2009, they celebrated their American girls’ rite of passage - Sadie had her bat mitzvah and Claudia, her confirmation.

In contemporary America, who are the heroes and role models for Chinese American girls? These girls’ journey toward womanhood will mirror America’s own journey as the country continues its own growing pains navigating our ever-changing social and cultural waters.  The harder questions will come, as they always do, when the young women take the eventual journey back into themselves and discover who they really are.  This is the story of their becoming.

Becoming explores identity in contemporary America. The lives of Asian American girlhood is largely silent – absent from any mainstream media representation.  In these multicultural-trans-continent adoptions, a new generation of Americans is raised far from their roots.  This project explores the lives of these girls using their own voice, serving a segment of society who had been long denied such opportunities.  The longitudinal nature of the project provides insight to a plethora of social issues, from our shrinking borders, to changing mores to the passages of our lives, in the tradition of the 7 Up Series.