“How are we all so brave to take step after step? Day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip, and then get up and say OK? Why do I feel so sorry for everyone and so proud? Angels walking on the earth. Cherubim and seraphim. I take pictures of people, but not everyone is pleased to be photographed.” —Maira Kalman, The Principles of Uncertainty

Chinatown: Dreaming in Pictures was begun in 2009 as an ongoing photo essay, a sort of psychological portrait, that strives to capture the aspirations and bitter labor, the magic and mystery that is life in Manhattan's Chinatown. In this ever-morphing neighborhood I am merely another outsider in a sea of outsiders—from Hunan, Xi'an, Beijing, and beyond, all hoping to find their foothold in the American Dream.

Older residents from Hong Kong are now being displaced by newer immigrants from Fujian, models, gallerists, and hipsters. Groovy bars now glow in the night. Yet Chinatown's streets still crackle with Cantonese and Mandarin; innovation and resignation; the high tech and the makeshift; and a poetry both quiet and operatic that is all its own.