Chan Chao Kalemyo, Burma (Myanmar), b. 1966

Chan Chao’s Member of CNA, is part of a series of portraits Chao took along the Thai-Burmese and India-Burmese border. Chao was born in Kalemyo, Burma and immigrated with his parents to the United States as a teenager. As an adult, Chao wanted to revisit Burma and his remaining family there but could not obtain a VISA for entry. Instead, he photographed the refugees from India and Burma who were displaced by the military regime, many of whom were prepared to fight to attempt to get the military to step down. Chao reflects that “if I had stayed in Burma, would I have had the courage to do what these people have done? These visits to the border camps were very much a kind of self-reckoning.”