No one is more American than an immigrant. I think of my family when the US  immigration reform discussion crops up again because we are all of us born in France and new to America. Yes, it is a peculiar feature of my life that despite having the most French of families my own mother and her parents lived outside of Chicago starting in 1953. In fact, they lived the American Dream. Their house in the suburbs. I think only a family as art directed by a French woman could captur

My mother and her parents were the first members of my family to immigrate to the new world, and they did it with their usual glamor. Aboard the ship. Her new step father moves my nine-year old mother and his new wife to America from southern France. The first people in my family to hit the new world. New York City, 1953. Roger the engineer’s love of gadgets is the reason I have so many wonderful photos to share with the world. #HélèneLasserre #HélèneBaronnie #vintagephotogra

The Halloween costumes of my mother’s youth doubled down on her opera training. Here are three from her teenage years. They were living in the suburbs of Chicago at the time. Her mother’s artistic creativity is evident… not only in the costumes but in that painting on the wall in the background. “Gypsy” or Carmen. “Egyptian princess” or Aida. “Japanese geisha” or The Mikado or perhaps Madama Butterfly. It is amusing to me that, for such a French family, my mother and her pare