The Museum of the City of New York is hosting an exhibition titled Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers. The exhibition documents the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia. It features the work of An Rong Xu, Annie Ling and Thomas Holton who all dedicated significant time of their creative practice engaging with this segment of the American population. The exhibition addresses themes of migration, identity and assimilation. The theme of assimilation sparks the most interest here because it investigates the unassimilated tendencies within these communities. The photographs portray a culture that although thousands of miles away from their origin largely maintains their cultural practices and ways of life without being dominated by Western cultural norms. A closed tight knit community with a unwavering attachment to their cultural roots is seen throughout the exhibition, raising questions on processes of migration, national identity and the supposed necessity of assimilation.