plagued by longing is an ongoing sculptural and research-based series that examines how personal memory intersects with colonial history, migration, and the formation of Filipino American identity. The series begins with my father’s near-death experience, subsequent memory loss, and life with dementia, using familial care as an entry point into broader questions of inheritance and belonging. From there, the work expands outward to ask where “American” identity begins for Filipinos following U.S. imperial expansion, tracing my father’s grandfather's participation in the transition from Spanish to American rule in the Philippines. Working across sculpture and installation, I layer resin, pigment, archival photographs, and found materials to create translucent surfaces that function as material fossils, holding fragments of lived experience while acknowledging their instability. Storytelling operates as both method and form: as memories shift through retelling, the work reflects the uncertainty of recollection alongside the gaps of colonial archives. Through these material processes, plagued by longing transforms intimate family histories into expanded visual records, inviting viewers to consider how memory, identity, and belonging are shaped across generations by both care and empire.