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Rohina Hoffman is an Indian-born American artist whose narrative work focuses on themes of identity, home, adolescence, and the female experience. Raised in New Jersey but now residing in California, Rohina received her BS in Neuroscience and MD both from Brown University. She also studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. Rohina published her first monograph Hair Stories with Damiani Editore (February 2019) accompanied by a solo exhibition at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School. Hair Stories is held in many public collections and university libraries. Her photographs have been exhibited widely in juried shows and in 2021 she was the winner of the Purchase Award with Atlanta Photography Group and several of her prints were acquired by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.

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1968: On the day I was born my father left India for New York. He was the first of our family to pursue the American Dream. On the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act had been passed, eliminating immigrant quotas and prioritizing family reunification and skilled professional labor. My father fit that latter category. He started his residency in orthopedics at Queens General Hospital, despite already being a fully certified orthopedic surgeon in India. This was the path to the Dream. My mother followed three months later, leaving me to be raised by my paternal grandparents.

May 2020: I am riveted to the television. My children and I watch parts of Los Angeles burning, storefronts being vandalized and a massive riot happening a few miles from home. The chronic and entrenched pandemic of racism is being revealed. Superficial laws had made it possible for immigrants like my parents to arrive in the United States, make me an American, and allow me to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, class, and upbringing. But the Civil Rights Movement of 1965 did not fully address the economic inequities, attitudes, and power structures that continue to plague the United States. My own accomplishments are dependent on my proximity to whiteness. As I look at my kids, whom I affectionately refer to as hybrids, I wonder, what is their role, and what is their responsibility?