Using Photography to Love Beyond Words with Heather Gallagher [Podcast EP 46]
Heather grew up as a “third culture kid”, and as a child of a deaf adult. Heather shares her heartfelt story of how she learned to communicate with her mother through photography, which has led to her passion and career: full spectrum family photography.
Imagine not having a common language with your mother. Imagine constantly feeling like you are misunderstanding and being misunderstood. When you're among other Asians, you don't feel Asian enough, and when you're among white people, you want to own your place as the minority in the group but you can still pass as white. Oh, and you also grew up in a black community outside of DC and can identify with that culture as well.
In this episode, we tackle the tough life questions of "Who are you?" and "How do you identify yourself?" These questions are not easy for anyone to answer. For our guest Heather Gallagher, a Chinese-American, she constantly felt stuck trying to balance different cultures. She often felt guilt because in moments when she was favoring one culture, it meant she was rejecting the other, which meant she was “rejecting” one of her parents.
She gives us a look behind the curtains into her world, where not only was she balancing American and Chinese cultures, but she also grew up in a predominantly black community, and is a CODA, which means she is the Child of a Deaf Adult.
These identity and culture clashes shaped Heather's childhood. Now, she's grown into even more identities like photographer, business owner, doula, spouse, new mother, and most recently, author.
Her book will be the story of how she learned to communicate with her mother without words, writing, or sign language.
"You can be face to face with somebody and talking but not fully communicating. Your words can fail sometimes. What I hope people can take away is there is a way. Maybe it’s not the most direct route and it can be really frustrating, but if you really care you can find a way to connect in a meaningful way. Maybe it’s not with words. Maybe you can create your own language." -Heather Gallagher
This is a story of hope, finding your identity and how Heather learned to create her own language with her mother. And let us not forget, she also has a crazy story to tell about how she met her husband from responding to an advertisement in a magazine!
Love in the Time of MySpace
The year was 2007. MySpace still existed and you’re feeling anxious about who to put in your Top 8. The top three Billboard songs were “Irreplaceable” by Beyonce, “Umbrella” by Rhianna, and “Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani. Side note—can we appreciate for a second how the top three songs were by awesome powerful WOMEN?! Anyway…
Heather was living in New York City, and at the time, Time Out New York was still a print magazine rather than online. They were trying out a new segment called Date Our Friends. The writers, photographers and creative directors of the magazine could nominate their friends to be eligible bachelors and bachelorettes who would be featured in an advertisement in the magazine, like a dating profile. People who came across the ad and were interested in the person could contact them.
Heather had just moved back from her study abroad experience in Australia. She had an Australian boyfriend and at the time she thought they were going to make it work despite the distance. Some of our Love Intently long distance stories work out, but in Heather’s case, something even better was in store for her. It all started on the fateful day she came across a funny advertisement for a man named Tim.
“When I reached out to Tim it was more from curiosity standpoint. I was curious about how this was going for him. I wondered what it’s like to have an advertisement for yourself in this really public forum.” -Heather Gallagher
And the rest is history. Well actually, the rest is in this podcast, so go ahead and listen to hear the full story, including how they dealt with a bout of depression after picking up their lives and moving across the country to Austin, Texas, where they knew absolutely no one.
“I wish I could tell myself at the time this [depression] is only temporary, but you have to do the work. I wish we were easier on ourselves. We put so much pressure on ourselves to figure out a fix, that I think we created more fractures. We were all each other had. So we were this island. If we didn’t know what to do, we didn’t have anyone to turn to.” -Heather Gallagher
The Pressures of Growing up in Clashing Cultures
What is an identity? Do we really need to choose how we identify? If we do, how do we even choose our identity, especially if we’re raised in many different macro and micro cultures?
Heather’s life growing up was a series of identity crises. She has a Chinese mother who is deaf, so Heather was raised in a deaf community. Her father is American.
As she was trying to fit into one culture or the other, she felt guilt because as she rejected one culture, she rejected the parent that she got it from.
“My self-love journey has been this ebb and flow of trying to own all of my identities and be ok with that. For the longest time, I would pick and choose how I wanted to identify. I pass as a white girl, I speak English, I don’t have an accent, a lot of people tell me I don’t look Asian. I would reject the Chinese side of me. But I’d find myself in an Asian community and I want to say “me too”, and I’ll hear you’re not Asian enough. And around a bunch of white people, I want to own that I’m the only minority in the room.” -Heather Gallagher
Heather has a great outlook for anyone going through these same struggles. Listen in to the full episode to hear where she’s at now with understanding and accepting her identity, and how she got to this point.
When you have no common language with your mother
Heather’s mother had a very difficult childhood:
“Her mom’s family chose not to learn sign language. It’s an ugly side of deaf culture. Some Individuals grow up in homes where they have to learn to read lips. She didn’t learn sign language until much later. She grew up poor in the 40’s and 50’s in China. She was the only girl and only deaf person in her family. She lived a very isolated life. The family didn’t send her to school until she was 12 years old, when she started Kindergarten.”
So, not only did her mother not learn sign language until much later in life, but she learned Taiwanese sign language, and then moved to America, where American Sign Language is used, and this is the sign language that Heather and her brother learned.
This obviously led to a lot of emotional hurt and frustration. Heather felt disconnected from her mother. She also couldn’t communicate to her mother where she was going or when she’d be back if she left the house, so when her mother returned home from work, she’d be in a panic wondering where Heather is.
One day, Heather finally found a break-through solution. This solution is what her book is about and why she is such a passionate photographer now.
Life’s a Spectrum
Heather is a full spectrum family photojournalist. This means she captures birth, death, and the big transitional moments of life. Heather is unique in that most other photographers and people only want to capture birth, but she believes death is an inevitable part of life and is just as important:
“I’m a birth photographer. I also photograph death. Birth and death are linked. Everyone is born. Everyone dies. But everyone wants to talk about birth. No one wants to talk about death. But it’s just as inevitable. I don’t believe it has to be scary or ugly. It’s just all part of the process.” -Heather Gallagher
She is also a full spectrum doula, meaning she is there to provide emotional support to the birthing mother before, during, and after birth.
Connect with Heather
Instagram: @lifesaspectrum
Website: lifesaspectrum.co
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