Becoming Us (In Progress)

Synopsis

Becoming Us is a full-length documentary film inspired by my origin story along with my four donor-conceived half siblings who were all conceived through the same anonymous Filipino donor. While living in the Philippines in 2018, I took an AncestryDNA test in hopes it would reveal the identity of the donor. Instead of finding my biological father, I connected with a donor conceived sister, Jenna Reiter, 21, living in North Carolina. This initial discovery of Jenna led to discovering other donor conceived siblings: Caden Yarnell, 17, in Toledo, Ohio, Kenny Dysard, 17, in Lowell, Michigan, and Jordain Haley-Banez, 26, in Tokyo, Japan.

As the epicenter of this project, alongside my donor siblings, I’m exploring how Filipino identity can be both displaced and rediscovered through a variety of political and social mechanisms; the impacts of colonialism on Filipino families through generations, the fluidity of Filipino identity, and what current generations of donor-conceived children from marginalized backgrounds can do the grapple with these complex and emerging forms of family, identity, culture, and beyond.