Spun from Bay Area yarn, Jean Melesaine calls this place her forever home—she even has ‘Bay Area’ tattooed across her forearms. A Samoan-American and photographer by trade, she opens windows into lives many of us would never know.
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Through her job at Silicon Valley De-Bug – an organization that uses storytelling as a force for change – she co-edited a book on the stories of the working class in Silicon Valley. She also did a project on queer Samoan-Americans, called ‘Navigating Queer Pacific Waves’. Her newest plan? To document young SF Samoan-Americans in conversation with their immigrant elders.
Melesaine finds the silver lining in circumstance, knowing that no one is without a relatable experience – pairing well with the fact that her warmth gets people to spill their story. Like, when she found herself in jail on her 21st birthday. She spent the time drawing and talking with the other women in the jail, learning about their lives.
In an interview with KQED, she said, “The women would give me their kids’ pictures and tell me their stories while they were sitting next to me drawing. Those women who I was locked up with, I have so much love for them. I hope everything’s cool and they made it.”
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Have a look at her portfolio.
