Yin Water Rabbit of 2023 was marked as a year of inner cultivation; to go down the rabbit hole to rest and to dream liberatory futures into existence.
Now is the time to put your visions to the test and launch into empowered action. Yang Wood Dragon is here to bring forth a new wave of leadership, one that centers radical inclusion, embodied expression, and collective liberation. Dragon is a multi-dimensional magician, bringing forth external transformation through catharsis and collective healing. Yang Wood carries a groundbreaking energy which matches Dragon’s progressive spirit. This year is about birthing new paradigms to light and integrating all parts of our infinite selves that yearn to be seen and potentialized. This is also a time to set clear intentions and align our choices and actions with our values, especially in a time of great mobilization.
Utilize grounded Dragon Qi to hold your center, and release old patterns within the body. Transmute pain into purpose, anger into power, fear into action. Lean on community. Dragon year is asking us to explore and create new revolutionary practices of care and accountability. Root down to expand out. We got this!
In Ba Zi Chinese Astrology, we look at the 10 Heavenly Stems (5 Elements with its Yin and Yang counterparts) and 12 Earthly Branches (12 Zodiac Signs) to give insight into one’s past, present, and future. The elements and animals are keys to understanding the cyclical ways of nature, the ways of the Universe, and our innermost motivations.
Yang Wood is imagined as a seed becoming a tree bursting with potential. It’s the energy of taking big initiatives, breaking down frontiers, sharing gifts with confidence and conviction.
THE DRAGON
Dragon symbolizes power, transformation, connection, and freedom. This year is one for the emerging leaders and revolutionaries! May we be able to listen, learn, transmute, and shift what is no longer working to serve our greater good.
Share your gifts, your voice, your story
Whether that’s performing on stage or facilitating storytelling circles with friends and family, don’t be afraid to show the world who you are and what you believe in.
Check out embodiment practices
Find a movement practice such as dance, qi gong, or martial arts- being in your body will give you the clarity and resilience needed in times of uncertainty.
Increase your scales of impact for social change
Document, publicize, build, educate, rally, bring people together- we all have a role to play in pursuit of shared liberation.
Sit with your emotions
Instead of running away from feelings of overwhelm, stay grounded and practice mindfulness.
Start or find a support group for community healing
We need to radically shift the ways we connect and relate to each other.
Step into your leadership
Lead with fierce vulnerability, integrity, active listening.
Watch out for increased polarization
Embody compassion. Learn how to hold complexity and know there are multiple truths before reacting impulsively.
Leave toxic relationships behind
Learn how to identify narcissistic behavior in relationships and how to hold each other with accountability and respect.
Practice saying no to opportunities that aren’t soul-aligned
There will be a lot of opportunities, choices, and change this year. Be strategic with how you spend your energy.
Cultivate Patience and Humility
Building your capacity to lead and influence doesn’t make you a god, watch your ego in the process as you build up your purpose.
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To learn more, connect with Tiff Lin, @tiffrexrei, Ba Zi astrology practitioner
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It’s a term that has been criticized for its use in Western media and restaurants for its casual racism in how it exoticizes and generalizes a whole region and cultures to a monolith—a phenomenon which has been explored by outlets like The New York Times and Eater. Many critics have pointed out how many popular “Asian” salads in various restaurant and fast food menus are not made by Asian chefs or seem to have a basis in specific Asian cuisine. Some businesses such as Applebees, use extremely dated and offensive terminology to refer to their Asian salads, namely their “Oriental Chicken Salad.”
The term “Asian salad” seems to be a spiritual successor to the popular “Chinese chicken salad” that took hold in the 1960's U.S. The “Chinese chicken salad” was a best-selling menu item at Madame Wu’s Garden in Santa Monica, a restaurant popular with Hollywood celebrities of its time (the restaurant operated from 1959-1998). The owner, Sylvia Cheng Wu, who was born in China in 1915 and moved to the States after WWII, created the salad at the request of one her regulars, Hollywood star Cary Grant. This salad was made up of chicken mixed with fresh vegetables that were topped with sesame oil, soy sauce, mustard, and other seasoning.
Since then, “Asian salad” has become the more popular term since the 80’s as more Asian-fusion salads are made with the addition of other ingredients such as miso, cilantro, ginger, yuzu, peanut, and soy sauce from a variety of chefs, fast food chains, and restaurants.
Considering how broad the “Asian salad” is, we decided to ask our community their thoughts. An editorial note: when we asked folks questions, we wanted to keep things open-ended and didn’t give them a definition of “Asian Salad.” For some, their definition of “Asian Salad” referred to fusion cuisine, for others, it referred to salad-like dishes from various Asian cultures. The following answers reflect the diversity of definitions.
“A mixture that includes ‘Asian ingredients’ like wonton chips in the Chinese chicken salad or kamaboko and Somen noodles in the Somen salad.”
—Ren Markle, @renmaicha
“What makes a salad ‘Asian’ is all in the dressing. The dressing needs to have components that originate from Asia that ties the dish back to its roots. The herbs that are used, the techniques that go into prepping the greens, and even the way the dish is served or garnished are all key to making an authentic asian salad.”
—Jonathan Nguyen, @jon_nguyen1
“Sesame and ginger—but really anything that conjures the Asian imaginary. Add things that can be considered exotic to the otherwise bland American diet. Sesame, ginger, soy sauce, gochujang, tofu, and somehow also red onions.”
—Jackson Wright, @minjoona.music
“Honestly I feel like any type of vegetable that’s pickled makes it Asian. Like you can throw kimchi in it and it’s tasty.”
—Cay Chang, @memeok444
“Asian salads are interesting, mostly because the ‘Asian salads’ I had growing up often didn’t fit what a salad is. One of the volunteers at my job made ‘Strawberry Salad’ which was a pretzel crust with a cream cheese cool whip topping and a strawberry jello layer, it didn’t resemble a salad at all but it’s something I saw often growing up [in Hawai’i].”
—Ren Markle, @renmaicha
“I think Asian salads are delicious! They’re a good way to get your essential nutrients in and cool off during the hot summer months.”
—Jonathan Nguyen, @jon_nguyen1
“I love Asian salad dishes but there’s this other category of “Asian Salad” which refers to dishes that are more like Fusion dishes, that are usually not invented by Asian people, and I think things like a “Chinese Chicken Mandarin Salad” or California Pizza Kitchen’s “Thai Crunch Salad” falls into that category. I don’t find it offensive (because food is just food at the end of the day), but it is kind of funny to me that just because it uses a single ingredient that’s associated with a specific Asian culture, it becomes ‘Chinese’ or ‘Thai’...To me, ‘Asian salad’ feels like if I made a salad that used olive oil and then concluded that the salad I made is ‘Italian salad,’ even if no other part of the salad was relevant to Italian cuisine.”
—Maya Kulkarni, @maayaa.co
“The Asian salad is just one of those absurd inventions that I feel has gone from something with culturally-specific roots—either in traditional salad forms or salads that changed as a result of migration—to a kind of brand: you know exactly what you’re getting when you order an ‘Asian salad’, despite those two words having a world of meaning in-and-of themselves.”
—Jackson Wright, @minjoona.music
“Lazy writing for a name. It definitely feels like a white person came up with it and put random things in it and was like here is an Asian salad. Mainly because Asian salads are served in white restaurants but when I go to Asian restaurants and they have salads on the menu, they aren’t called Asian salads.”
—Cay Chang, @memeok444
“Mine is either Chinese Chicken Salad or Somen Salad!”
—Ren Markle, @renmaicha
“A Vietnamese dish I grew up eating called Goi Ga that has a fish sauce based dressing with lime and chili that provides the perfect tang and umami flavor.”
—Jonathan Nguyen, @jon_nguyen1
“In my early 20s, an ‘Asian salad’ I ate weekly was a DIY version of California Pizza Kitchen’s ‘Thai Crunch Salad.’ I don’t know if it was particularly Thai—the salad had Napa cabbage, red cabbage, carrots, green onions, cucumbers, cilantro, edamame, roasted peanuts, fried wontons skins, and a peanut dressing. Some Asian salads (that are from Asia) that I love include Green Moong Dal Sundal (a South Indian salad with sprouted mung beans, grated coconut, and curry leaves) and Larb (minced meat salad, national dish of Laos!)”
—Maya Kulkarni, @maayaa.co
“My favorite salad that is Asian [in origin] is the salad that comes in the dosirak at my hometown Korean restaurant, Choga in Kansas, that is pretty barebones—it’s pretty much just arugula and lettuce with a soy sauce-vinegar-sugar dressing. I’ve recently started making it at home too and it’s just really bouncy and tangy. It’s the ideal palette cleanser in between the more savory elements of the dosirak.
And my favorite ‘Asian salad’ is the one from McDonalds—I don’t know if they still sell it but I used to get it when they still had Select Tenders. It was super sweet and had a lot of crunchy elements—sesame seeds, almonds, carrots and then also the grilled chicken that had the texture of tofu. Really great stuff.”
—Jackson Wright, @minjoona.music
“The ramen noodle salad! I like this Asian salad because you top it with uncooked ramen all crunched up. I don’t like peanuts so it’s a great substitute for the crunch. I’m also a slut for cabbage.”
—Cay Chang, @memeok444
Reference:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/opinion/sunday/why-is-asian-salad-still-on-the-menu.html
https://www.eater.com/2017/6/28/15885490/race-food-writing
https://www.saveur.com/culture/obituary-madame-wu-chinese-chicken-salad/]]>Thanks for checking out our living resource list to accompany printed versions of our AAPI Mental Health Zine, "come eat fruit". The zine and this resource list was created by Cut Fruit Collective and is for the AAPI community to be used as a resource for our community to reconnect, heal, and grow.
Disclaimer: The zine and resource list was created to be an educational resource and a tool for self-reflection. It is not medical advice or therapy. We encourage you to continue reflecting on topics of AAPI mental health with friends, family, community members, or mental health professionals. Last updated June 26 2023.
Did you miss out on our fundraiser but still want to get a digital copy of our zine? Check back on this page for more details soon!
Therapist Directories
Crisis Lines
Peer Support
Education
Local Orgs
Additional Resources
What is Mental Health? (page 4)
Boundaries in AAPI Families (page 10)
History of the Asian Tiger Mom (page 15)
Generational Trauma + Strength (page 19)
Self Care and Community Care (page 24)
Cultural Roots of Mindfulness (page 28)
Understanding Ableism and Disability (page 32)
Unpacking Food Relationships (page 32)
Food History to Understand AAPI Identity (page 46)
Where Are You Really From (page 51)
Understanding Settler Colonialism (page 32)
Collective Trauma and Healing (page 62)
Getting Mental Health Care (page 66)
]]>The Community Prosperity Program brings us back to our roots in merch relief, but this time, it’s a joint venture. Cut Fruit Collective will partner with impacted small businesses in AAPI heritage neighborhoods to design and sell branded merchandise. Proceeds go back to the businesses, providing an additional revenue stream. To complete the program, we will collaborate with AAPI creatives to spotlight the stories behind the businesses and neighborhoods.
To kickoff the collection, we co-designed merch with two beloved Oakland Chinatown small business owners, Finnie Phung of Green Fish Seafood and Anh Nguyen of Cam Anh Deli. Your purchase helps Finnie and Anh recover lost revenue, pay their workers, and remain open for business.
Their collections along with a few limited edition LNY goodies that benefit our programs are now available in our online shop. With your support, we hope to co-create the collection with more AAPI heritage small businesses. It will be a full community effort as we’ll be needing your participation to reach out and nominate businesses, design the merch, and share the stories of these small businesses and neighborhoods. Stay tuned for more to come.
Let’s Go for Gold and Get to $100K!Vote Cut Fruit Collective for the Gold Futures Challenge and help us continue to co-create AAPI community care. |
Big news! We’ve been selected as a finalist for the Gold Futures Challenge and we need your support to help us receive a grant of up to $100K. The Gold Futures Challenge is a collaboration between Asian American Futures and Gold House nurturing AAPI organizations that help AAPI individuals and communities be seen, heard, empowered, and united. For every $100 awarded by foundations for work in the United States, only 20 cents is designated for AAPI communities. The Gold Futures Challenge aims to put the funding power back in the hands of the people. Part of the voting process is to raise awareness of the organizations doing important work within AAPI communities. All finalists will receive a minimum of $25,000, but the nonprofit that receives the most votes from the people will receive $100,000. That’s where our supporters like you come in! Earning this grant will help us to provide our flavor of community care to even more areas in need. Think more gatherings, more community art, more programs supporting small businesses and the elderly, and more love for the Bay Area AAPI community! HOW TO VOTE
Voting by Tuesday, September 27 |
Stacy Park Milbern, a Korean American disability rights activist, says “disability is what society creates as a barrier because of impairment. When I am in a place where my access needs are being met, then my impairment isn’t so significant.”
To fully understand Stacy’s definition, it is important to differentiate between impairments and disability, a distinction made by the social model of disability. The social model understands impairments, which are functional limitations a person might face, to be a natural part of being human and something that society should accommodate in a non-judgemental way.
This is in contrast to the medical model, which frames a person’s impairments as something that must be fixed or cured, and that their impairment alone is the reason why they are not able to fully participate in society. All human beings are complex and require unique needs, regardless of ability. Thus, we can understand impairments to be differences rather than deficits, and work with disabled people to ensure they receive the specific support and accommodations they need to thrive.
According to the CDC, 26% of adults in the U.S. have at least one disability. Not all disabilities are visible, people of all ages can be disabled, and disability can occur at birth, be sudden, or be gradual. Impairments that can result in disability include mental illness, physical impairments, significant trauma, neurodivergence, chronic illness or pain, and beyond. However, always defer to how an individual chooses to identify themselves instead of assuming disability. If a person does not identify as an individual with a disability, they may choose to use the term “able-bodied” or “non-disabled.”
Ableism is prejudice and discrimination against disabled people, and is a type of oppression that has deep roots in the structure of our society. Under ableism, society is structured to favor non-disabled people, and disabled people are considered expendable.
Abolitionist educator, organizer, and lawyer Talila A. Lewis describes ableism as “a system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness…you do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.”
A society such as ours where people must have “employable skills” and work in order to have money, healthcare, and the means to get their basic needs met is inherently ableist. Those who are unable to work or do not receive necessary accommodations at their workplace are left to struggle or put themselves through undue stress in order to stay employed.
Ableism encourages society to assume disabled people do not have the capacity, autonomy, or knowledge to make decisions for themselves. This may look like removing their right to make personal decisions, such as through conservatorship, or being “so inspired” when disabled people achieve anything at all. Further, when we define individuals’ worth through subjective qualities rather than their inherent value as a human, dehumanizing language and violence toward those who do not meet a certain standard becomes more acceptable. This opens the door for harmful biases, like healthcare discrimination that dictates who is worthy of care, and dangerous laws, such as those that banned visibly disabled people from appearing in public.
While you do not have to be disabled to experience ableism, ableism most significantly impacts disabled people who have to navigate ableism in addition to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or other forms of systemic oppression. Ableism is so ingrained in our society, language and systems that it may be initially challenging to name it when it is happening.
An example of an everyday ableist interaction could be:
You have decided to listen to what your body needs and stay in bed until you feel ready to get up. Your parent barges into your room, saying, “You’re so lazy! When I was your age, I woke up at dawn every day! Why are you so tired all the time, your life is not that hard?”
Your parent assumes you staying in bed is a result of your own unwillingness to work hard, rather than attempting to understand the valid reasons you have for wanting more time in bed. You could be experiencing pain from an injury, fatigue from a chronic condition, or exhaustion from a mental illness. Maybe you can’t even explain why–you just know that rest is something you need right now. Regardless, the assumption that you are lazy or spoiled because your body needs rest is ableist.
Current census data shows that 1 in 10 Asian and 1 in 6 Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander adults in the U.S. have at least one disability. Disabled AAPI have been found to experience greater everyday discrimination, greater phsychological and physical distress, and poorer physical and mental health ratings than their non-disabled counterparts. During a pandemic and time of heightened anti-Asian racism, disabled and immunocompromised AAPI face an especially high risk of violence and discrimination.
Oversimplification of the AAPI demographics makes it difficult to pinpoint accurate representation of specific ethnic groups in research around disability. For example, research shows that Native Hawaiians are overrepresented in special education, in part due to differences in Western style schooling, Hawaiian culture, and language. However, Asians are underrepresented in special education, in part due to stereotypes or lack of utilization of services.
For many disabled Asians, navigating an ableist society may look like actively resisting the ableist model minority myth, which incorrectly assumes all Asians are successful, wealthy, and hardworking. This harmful stereotype is especially destructive for disabled Asians, many of whom are made to feel invisible or ignored within disabled or Asian spaces. Further, the model minority myth may make it more difficult for Asians to request and find needed accommodations, support, or self-identify as disabled.
While cultural factors and values, like family image, collectivism, and productivity, certainly influence the disabled AAPI experience, it is equally important to acknowledge that pressures to conform and assimilate may make it more difficult for disabled AAPI to make important life decisions or change harmful narratives around disability in AAPI homes. There may also be differences in perception of visible vs. invisible disabilities, with some families refusing to acknowledge the validity of a disability that cannot be seen. Struggles with disability may be difficult to convey because of differences in beliefs around wellness or the limitations of language and translation.
We can work to create a more equitable world for everyone. To start, asking for our needs to be met, whether or not we identify as disabled, helps normalize the reality that every human has unique support needs. Rather than forcing ourselves to fit into specific boxes, asking for help or accommodations empowers us to shape the world around us and foster an environment where it is safe to be vulnerable. When you ask for what you need, you signal to others that they deserve to have their needs met, too.
Affirmations
References
Please note that this conversation was held between two people who have experiences with Christianity, and while we hope there are some nuggets of wisdom that anyone in the community can resonate with, it is still one conversation. We encourage folks to continue conversing about what this means for them, whatever their relationship with religion or spirituality may be.
In this conversation, Rumi and Amanda talk a lot about holistic psychosomatic therapy and coaching. Very generally speaking, holistic psychosomatic therapy can be seen as an approach to therapy that incorporates elements of the mind, body, and spirit, focusing on a variety of factors for overall wellness. A psychosomatic therapist or coach may work with you to process how emotions feel in your body or soul, rather than simply focusing on cognitive or behavioral changes. While therapy and coaching share many similarities, there are also a few important differences. Therapy tends to focus more on healing from the past, whereas coaching places more emphasis on future goals. This context is provided by Cut Fruit Collective for the purpose of offering clarity and information to readers. For more specific information about Rumi’s practice and offerings, please see their website here.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Amanda: So thank you again for making time to talk today. I know a little bit about your work through Inclusive Therapists, but maybe [do] you want to start by introducing yourself and kind of describing what is the work that you do?
Rumi: Yeah, absolutely. So hello to anyone who will be listening to this. My name is Rumi, my pronouns are they and she, and I offer holistic psychotherapy alongside psychosomatic holistic coaching services. A lot of the work that I do is what I would call reclamation, I really see healing work as a path towards liberation. But in doing so we're also taking back something that's often been lost inside of us by connecting to the body, that connecting to not just our physical body, but our spiritual, emotional and mental bodies, remembering ourselves home, and allowing the containers that I offer individuals to be a vehicle towards meaningful change. And transformation on my client’s terms.
Amanda: That sounds wonderful. I think, yeah, when I think about wellness, it is like that holistic picture, right? You know, we talk about mental health, but there's so much more that goes into it than just our mental state. And I think that physical and spiritual safety and wellness are included in that as well. So that sounds really transformative for folks. What is it that brought you to that work specifically? Like through that lens?
Rumi: Yeah, that's a good question. So, I mean, as I often share, I always knew that I wanted to support people. And I think when I started it, you know, it was in the early stages of my college years, and I've always leaned towards being in service work. But I think it took me a long time to get in right relationship with that. And by that, I mean, learning what it means to be of service without trying to save people. And so I think that's why that decolonial lens is so important in this work. But it took me a while to come into therapy, and I took some time before grad school because I just knew that I wasn't ready. And I started on my own personal journey towards healing. I'm a survivor of, you know, sexual trauma alongside early childhood trauma. And so I had to, I had to think to myself, like how can, how can I show up for others without identifying with their story, or that identify my stories in them, right. And so just knowing that I wanted to go into this work, I sought out my own healing, I started going to a therapist, and one really changed my life, she actually ended up being my first teacher in this work. But as soon as I met Mary, she helped me connect to my somatic body. And I think this is something that's really interesting, because as a culture, Asian Americans are so somatically connected, but that becomes almost, I think…I don't want to say “corrupted.” But that becomes diluted, I think, in the culture that we're surrounded by when we move to, you know, move abroad, when we have migration experiences. And so coming back to my body in that meaningful way, and healing from bottom up, instead of top down, I think it really changed my life. And so that became my clear path. And that's why I decided to go into therapy as a practice because my therapist helped me heal so deeply.
Amanda: Mmm, that's wonderful. I definitely resonate with that piece of doing the inner work. Because I am a student, I'm a second year student. And I also came into this work with my first experience with therapy and like how much that kind of transformed the way that I feel about myself and also repair the relationships that I have with other people. And I found it really interesting when you talked about top down versus bottom up healing. Can you share a little bit more about what that means?
Rumi: Yeah, yeah. I think in psychology, we often get this idea that we're thinking of, we're really in the mind, right? We think about our stories, we think about our narratives, and a lot of it is about changing our perspectives. And I think that there's a lot of value in that. But I think for some people, especially those…I work with a lot of highly sensitive people and a lot of those who might have a little bit more of a bodily approach or you know, in the same way that we recognize that trauma is stored in our bodies, so people maybe who have complex trauma or people who are generally just more sensitive in their bodies. A bottom up approach is a way for us to tap into deeper nervous system regulation, through the physical body, through motion, through energy as a way to create a bridge between our thoughts and our bodies in a way that I think we often don't necessarily have access to every day.
Amanda: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And, you know, my first experience with therapy was with CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. So definitely like that more top down approach that you mentioned. And I think that that did serve me for a little bit of time in terms of coping, but when I wanted to do that deeper healing work, it was that somatic piece, like the bottom up work of processing my emotions on a physical level, that really kind of brought me a little bit closer to what I feel is like true healing of the wounds that I had. So yeah, that's really insightful and really powerful. And I think that we need to talk about that a bit more when it comes to therapy.
Rumi: But I think the one thing that I find a lot of value in is somatic work, but I also take slight issue with the way that it's being sold back to us. These mindfulness tactics, or even like, you know, what do we call it now? Mindful…what they call mindful DBT? MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction)? That's just…that's just mindfulness. It's part of so many of our cultural histories, and it's kind of being sold back to us. And there's so much gatekeeping within these kinds of therapy communities, but it's just, I think that's a conversation for another day.
Amanda: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I definitely agree. I mean, I recently did a quick post on mindfulness and what are the origins of it, and how is that being, like, transformed and repackaged to us in a way that is divorced from our culture? So I know that a lot of the work that you do, or maybe not a lot, but part of the work that you do has to do with spiritual or religious wounds or trauma? Can you speak a bit more about what drew you to that specifically? And like, what does that look like for API?
Rumi: Oh my gosh, yeah…you're speaking directly to my heart space when you bring that up. I think a lot of our families, or grandparents when they moved to the States, you know, they moved to Turtle Island, found community and church spaces. And I can recognize how important that is culturally, while also making space for the fact that it was deeply traumatizing for so many people, including people who are queer and trans. And so when I was younger, I grew up in a very typical Korean Presbyterian Church. And I've always felt a spiritual connection with the divine. But the way that it was being taught to me was so…what I would call deficit-based– really, you know, from a place of fear, from a place of shame, telling us that we're small. And I think for that reason, I had this push and pull internally, especially as a queer young person, of “What is wrong with me?” I feel this connection, but this message isn't resonating with me. And so as I got older, and started to develop my own sense of spirituality, I started to expand my perspective. And then I started to realize that my relationship with spirituality had nothing to do with religion, but I'm grateful for religion because of the community that it built and for the meaning that it gives to my parents. For me, religion was my introduction into spirituality. But for me, when I say the word God, I mean the trees, I mean the sky and the earth, right? I mean the elements that we’re surrounded by, I mean looking at another person and seeing the beauty inside of them. And that's also why I think for me, spirituality is deeply queer, because you're expanding your understanding of something beyond binaries. And to me, the divine source is both a very deeply masculine and a very deeply feminine entity. And so that “bothness,” right? That “everythingness” is kind of what spirituality means to me. And when I bring in mindfulness, when I bring in spiritual healing in my work, I do it from a place of, again, remembrance. Of remembering the parts of our body that have always been connected to the earth, the parts of our body that remember the way that our ancestors would turn to plant medicine, things that we would call weeds, to heal our bodies. And so when I say holistic, I think that's what I refer to.
Amanda: Yeah, that “everythingness.”
Rumi: The “everythingness,” yeah.
Amanda: And I think that speaks to a really important thing, which can be the difficulty of holding those two spaces of understanding. How certain organized religion or certain aspects of religion that are very fear-based or are very shame-based doesn't resonate with us, but still wanting to hold on to that spirituality and not understanding how to shift away from that deficit model. And reclaim that spirituality–what it means for myself, and even just ancestrally, right? Like you mentioned at the beginning, I grew up in like an Evangelical Christian household, and so as a queer person it was just very hard for me to reconcile how we taught ourselves about queer people, versus how I felt. And also not being able to let go of religion entirely because I felt so much connection to that spirituality. And I think it is really important also to recognize how it has served our parents in terms of community, because that is definitely an anchor that my mom held onto as a Filipina person in a new world and a new country. Yeah, just like making space for that trauma but also a desire to still be connected as a queer Asian person. This kind of ties into a question that a team member wanted to ask, which is, “It's understandable that QTAPI might turn away from spirituality given that it can play a role in the oppression, prejudice, bias towards queer and trans people. But if you're able to access a space that feels affirming, what are the potential benefits of spirituality?”
Rumi: Oh, gosh. When I think about what it means to connect to spirituality, I really believe that it's about connecting to our highest selves. At the end of the day, people talk so often about the universe, right? But we're also thinking about how we can connect to this almost primal but also very, very, almost ethereal version of who we are. And you know, in psychology we often talk about the self with a capital S, right? I think spirituality and that “Selfness” is actually not removed from one another. And so, I truly believe that in our work connecting with spirituality, not only can we find cultural and ancestral remembrance, but we can also find a deeper relationship with who we are. Like, for example, I have an altar. And on my altar, I have a little figurine of Guanyin. And I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but this reminds me of my family's cultural origins. My dad was a Buddhist before he converted to Christianity and his family was too. And what this represents for me is, of course, working with the loving energy of this figure, but it’s also archetypal. It's how that archetype exists inside of me and how I can connect to that every day as a form of healing.
Amanda: And when we talk about healing, what does that look like or start to look like for QTAPI who want to maybe fully remove themselves from the religion because of the pain or may be trying to find some kind of connection still?
Rumi: I think it's so common for so many queer, especially API, who identify as Christian but not have a church community that they can go to. Because they lose community– “If I want to be who I am, I have to lose this part of me.” That's also just as important. Because church isn't just religion, it's also community. And so I think reconciling that can be really difficult. And it's hard to know where we fit in, in those spaces. And so finding an affirming church can be really helpful, or finding an affirming practice. I also know a lot of queer API that are really interested in things like oracle cards or Tarot as a way to connect to spirituality in a way that feels safer. Like astrology, right? And so bringing all of those things in and remembering that Christianity is a structure that has been given to us. But we can figure out what feels good for us, and I think that's where the somatics comes in, right? What if you're sitting in church and a pastor’s giving a sermon and something about that doesn't resonate, and your body does a “contraction,” which we talk about in somatics. What if that's not your truth? And what if that's okay, right? There's a hierarchy of, “This person's right. They're telling me how to live my life.” But everything's a teacher, and that also means that we can also take and leave whatever doesn't resonate with us.
Amanda: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that it took me a long time to give myself permission to do that. To leave behind things at church that are causing me to have those “contractions” or causing me pain. And just recognizing, “This is one person's interpretation of what this religion or this Bible means.” And I can view it in a different way. I don't have to accept that in my life. And I think that what you said about having to choose between different parts of ourselves is so powerful. Just from my personal experience, talking with friends, and also the work that I'm doing looking into mental health for API, that's such a big theme. That theme of belonging and choice, where we feel we have to live different lives in each different space that we occupy. How can we start to move towards wholeness in every space, rather than separating and choosing which mask to put on in different places?
Rumi: Yeah, seriously. I think that's the question, especially for those who are maybe queer API and neurodivergent, right? Because there's already masking going on in every space that you occupy. I think one thing that stands out to me in that conversation is that a lot of the conversation around spirituality, a lot of the conversation around queerness, is dominated by a very Eurocentric, white supremacist perspective. And so even within queer spaces, if you hear that a family is unaffirming, you'll hear a lot of, “Well, throw the family away,” right? And I don't think that API queer communities can discard their family as easily for a lot of reasons that I think are very culturally embedded. And I'm sure that a lot of other cultures can resonate with this, but even the idea of coming out, right? And so I think a lot of the fragmenting happens, of course, because of trauma, but also because we feel like we have to fit into specific narratives within our identities. And so maybe part of it is rewriting the stories and having more community conversations like this. I think that's why Cut Fruit Collective’s work is so important, because when you hear someone else's story, and it aligns with yours, you can say, “Oh, wait, that's me, too. I guess I don't have to do it this other way that I've been taught. I thought I had to.”
Amanda: Yeah, that expansiveness and that “everythingness” and coming back to that and just realizing that there's infinite possibilities. There's not just one way to exist or be. And I think it is definitely a culturally embedded thing where we might feel like we need to fit a certain mold in order to be accepted. And I think that is doubly true for neurodivergent QTAPI. I'm neurodivergent. And learning to unmask has been very difficult, but also liberating. If you were to offer any affirming words or sentiments to the QTAPI community who are on this journey of reclaiming their spirituality, or even just like figuring out what it means to them, if that's something they want to engage in, is there anything you'd like to offer them?
Rumi: I guess what I would say to them is that there's no wrong way to do this, and living your life, in your authenticity, is a holy and sacred thing. And if anyone tells you that you're wrong for that, I would want to offer them compassion because I think about the way that our ancestors– even, you know, two generations back, one generation back–our parents have had to fit into these boxes as well. Just remember that you have queer, you have neurodivergent, you have trans ancestors. Maybe they didn't use that language, right? And maybe they didn't have the same framework that you did. But you living your life, and being exactly who you are, is a love letter to every single person that came before you.
Amanda: Mmm. I got chills when you said that and I feel myself tearing up a little bit because, you know, coming from a family that doesn't necessarily accept queerness, the thought that like, my ancestors were queer–for sure, some of them were. And I never thought about that, but of course, I come from that lineage that is neurodivergent, that is queer, that exists outside of these molds that we feel we need to fit into because of societal pressures or the myth of white supremacy, right? They might not have the same language, but they understand how I feel on some level. And so their strength does reside in me. And that can be really, really powerful to realize.
Rumi: Exactly. And, you know, we always talk about ancestral work, right? If we don't know what that means, start there. Just think about the queer, neurodivergent, trans ancestors in your family line, and just connect with that in your own body. And I think that's ancestral work. You know, even before you set up an altar, maybe you can just do that inside the altar of your heart.
Amanda: You mentioned this altar a couple of times in our conversation. If somebody wanted to kind of create one for themselves, where would they start? How can they kind of start building that even just within themselves?
Rumi: Yeah, it can be so subtle, right? So all an altar is, in essence, is just a dedicated space that represents all four elements–or depending on the school of thought you're in, maybe five–but all the elements like earth, water, air, fire, and you can even put wood or metal. And then have some kind of symbol, maybe it could be a crystal, it could be a figurine or photo of your ancestors, that represents the entity or the idea that you're dedicating that altar to. It could be an ancestral altar, it could be an altar for love, an altar for hope, an altar for social change. Maybe you can have a bowl of water, or you can have a candle or crystals to represent the earth. And then maybe a feather or a fan to represent air. And my recommendation is play around, maybe do some research on what your culture did for altars. Most have some form of it, and then allow that to be kind of a vehicle towards, “Okay, let me just play around with this. Let me move this stone here. That feels good, maybe. I like the color pink here…” And just play around with it and see how that feels. Allow that to be a space for not just not just remembrance, but also feeling like that. I think an altar is an intention. Right? An altar is a dedication and a devotion. So it represents so much, but it also represents, for me, a relationship that I'm building with myself.
Amanda: Yes, I remember in one of my more recent experiences with therapy, they introduced me to this idea of an altar and talking to your inner child, and that work was so transformative for me. Just seeing that I had a space dedicated for my inner child and for remembering my ancestors. And that is like a physical reminder of where I came from. That was very powerful. I remember an immediate kind of push back against the idea of an altar, being raised with this idea of, “Oh, you can't worship anything outside of God, you know?” And so I think that if someone is having trouble connecting to what feels good to them, even just to that feeling of “What does feel good?” And that little voice that says, “This isn’t good.” How do you get beyond that? How do you connect to that feeling and be okay with it? Because sometimes that can be hard as well.
Rumi: Right? That's so true. I mean, I think sometimes there's the hesitation to set up an altar because of all the shame, the religious shame that comes from that. My thought is this– if God said that our bodies are a temple, then within our bodies, there is a sacred kind of altar. It's just space holding right? That's really what it is–space holding, remembrance. How is that not also sacred? Isn't an altar a gesture, a reflection of the holiness that we have inside of us, reflected on on the physical Earth, right? And we're forming a relationship with that ancestral connection. Again, that doesn't have to be a picture of your ancestor and feeding it with fruit, right? It could just be an intention. I think religion often upholds this idea of a very wounded patriarchy. It feels like a jealous and fearful dominating God, a very masculine presence that wants to take what we have for his own. And this might sort of rub some people the wrong way. But what I want to say is that, if God is love, right? If knowing God is also having a relationship with God, then what if an altar is just a reflection of that again, in the physical world?
Rumi: Right, yeah. It is so true. We fit God into this patriarchal view. But I think, you know, God is love and love doesn't have a gender. Love doesn't have a certain look to it, right? And so I think that releasing that is also really important, releasing this image that we have of God that's very dominating, like we should be fearful of him. I think that's like a verse that was often told to me. My mom always wished for me to be a “God-fearing person.” I'm just like, “Why would I be afraid of a God who loves me?” It's so strange.
Rumi: Exactly, it's the funniest thing! I think that's the reason why language is so important, especially for young people. And my thought is, if you connect to love and give yourself permission to feel that, then the other thing is–it's okay to make mistakes. And there's permission for that, too. So maybe you try an altar and you don't like it. You can take it down. It's okay. There's no eternal punishment for trying something.
Amanda: Yes, yeah. No punishment for that, for sure. Well, as we close up our time here, I just want to thank you again, for all your wisdom and your insights and sharing. I feel we could talk about this for a very long time. Are there any closing words or last words you wanted to share with our audience about what it means to be QTAPI with that religious wound or spiritual wound?
Rumi: Just that I see you, and that in so many ways we are each other, where there's so much of our stories that overlap. And I think that speaks to something. And I think that that's something really powerful. So, if you've seen anything in this conversation that lands with you, just know that I see your pain, I see your hope, I see your dreams, and I just want to pour love into anything that you're sitting with right now or anything that resonates with you. Just know that it comes from a place deep in my heart as well.
Amanda: Thank you so much. I really cherish this conversation. I love connecting with community, and I love hearing other people's stories, and how I resonate with them, and how it differs from mine because I learn so much from hearing other people's stories. So thank you.
Rumi: Thank you, I appreciate the opportunity.
]]>You could win some syrups from Pono Potions and more by entering our QTAPI Joy donor raffle! Donate today!
Cut Fruit Collective contributing writer Ren recently interviewed Peter! Read on to learn more about his inspirations and more.
Ren: Tell us about yourself, your business, and why you're doing what you’re doing!
Peter Hessler: Awesome! My name is Peter Hessler and I started Pono Potions in 2019 when I was still a college student at University of Hawai’i. I had been working in the culinary industry - cooking, bartending, managing - for about 10 years already so I had a lot of experience in that field. I really wanted to start my own business, but really struggled to make that happen with limited funding and just how expensive everything is here in Hawai’i, but it was also really important for me to incorporate Hawaiian culture and values into my business.
I am Native Hawaiian as well, and moving back here from Portland, Oregon in 2016, I really wanted to - first of all, I felt so comfortable here and felt a sense of ease and understanding within the community already and just so different than the continental United States. I feel like people can be really supportive and embrace you as a Native Hawaiian too. It was really important for me to incorporate that into whatever business I started and also, just to be here in Hawai’i for my business. So I came up with the idea of Pono Potions after working as a bartender and created a lot of naturally flavored syrups and mixes for cocktails. And also, I have a love for espresso and local coffee shops and all the shops here in Hawai’i would be using one of two syrup brands that are mass produced in the united states and are shipped all over the world. They usually taste very artificial and very overly sweet, and also just don't represent Hawai’i as it is.
I definitely saw a niche in the market that I could create a product that would be really passionate about and would also represent Hawai’i.
Ren: So you kind of mentioned it, but how would you describe your identity - Who would you say Peter is?
Peter Hessler: It's always been a little bit complicated to understand for myself. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, which is very white. I was always seen as the most exotic person in my private Catholic school which is very funny considering i'm half white too. My dad is white, my mom is Hawaiian and Chinese, so I did always feel a little bit different than my classmates, but didn't really know why or understand it.
And I've always embraced being Hawaiian and we were always been proud of that. I didn't grasp what it really meant until I moved here in 2016. So, yeah! I always considered myself hapa or mixed but after moving here and understanding more about the community, learning more throughout school about Hawaiian language and history - that definitely became a more prominent part of my identity.
Ren: How does your identity both as Native Hawaiian and being an LGBTQ+ person influence how you approach life and your business?
Peter Hessler: I would say it is a huge factor in my life and business, being LGBTQ and also being a part of the AAPI community. With Pono Potions itself, it comes down to producing our products that are sustainable to our community. From the products we source to how we recycle our bottles sustainably. But also, giving back to the community whether it be monetarily, empowering our employees, or creating a safe space to educate others in our community with our space here at Pō’ai.
Ren: Our audience is not super familiar with the Hawaiian language, what does Pō’ai mean?
Peter Hessler: Pō’ai actually means circle or a round shape in Hawaiian. So that is our brand for this space (the cafe) we’re sitting in now. We wanted to create a different brand than Pono Potions because it's not just about our syrups here. It's about the larger community of Hawai’i and how everything has come full circle here on the islands, how we wanna see us growing as a brand. We empower other local businesses by selling their handmade crafts and art, as well as having a space for workshops and events.
Ren: Do you have an idea of what you want for the community around Pō’ai - future goals for what kind of community you want to build around here?
Peter Hessler: Absolutely! One of the exciting things is - you don't even know yet! - we just signed a lease on the space next door!
Ren: Oh my gosh, congratulations!
Peter Hessler: Pō’ai will be expanding! Like I said, we did and do want to use our space as a community space for workshops, education, things like that, but our space is very limited. It is very small. So with this space next door, we will be able to double our seating capacity and really have a space for our community to gather for educational things like loom weaving and Hawaiian language, but also other fun things like cocktail making! So really just creating a comfortable space for people that identify how I do - or don't! Just create that space in Chinatown, in this really diverse community.
Ren: Awesome! Switching gears a bit, Pono Potions is a syrup company, do you have a favorite flavor?
Peter Hessler: My personal favorite right now is our Waialua honey ginger syrup. It's great in coffee, it's great in matcha, but I love making cocktails with it. Really simple, just the syrup, whisky, and lemon juice is super good and it's like the perfect nightcap!
Ren: I have one more question, what's your favorite fruit and do you have any cut fruit memories?
Peter Hessler: Love that question! My favorite fruit - the one I eat most often are probably grapes. Love cold grapes in the summer. I also have really fond memories of watermelon. Growing up, my family had a large scale catering business! So I remember just cutting hundreds of watermelons. I'd eat watermelon all summer!
]]>However, there are certain protective factors that are unique to AAPI LGBTQ+ youth. AAPI youth who feel a strong connection to their cultural background and say that their race/ethnicity is an important part of who they are reported nearly half the rate of attempting suicide in comparison to their peers who do not have a strong connection to their heritage. This Pride and always, we encourage our non-LGBT allies to uplift and support our QTAPI community. Recent statistics show that for every philanthropic dollar given, only 0.0012% goes towards LGBTQ AAPI causes. This means for every $100 given, only a tenth of a penny goes towards our LGBTQ AAPI community. Let's change that!
We see a colorful future where QTAPI (Queer, Trans, Asian American Pacific Islander) people thrive and need your help creating it! Cut Fruit Collective will be giving out funds to SF Bay Area based QTAPI artists through our Persimmon Grant to create space for reflection, authentic QTAPI stories, and positive change.
We've created a donor raffle* of art and fun products by QTAPI artists, creators and small businesses to fund and support our QTAPI programs. Donate at least $25 to Cut Fruit Collective's QTAPI Joy Fund by June 24 to automatically be entered into the raffle, multiple entries are allowed (donate in multiples of $25).
Raffle Prize includes:
3 gorgeous art prints by QTAPI artists:
Fun merch and products by QTAPI-owned small biz:
We hope our fundraiser and raffle inspires you to support your local QTAPI artists and small businesses this month and throughout the year!
*U.S. residents only. Winner will be contacted on June 25th, 2022. Prizes may be mailed out by individual vendors.
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This month, we’re providing space to this community for reflection, authentic storytelling and positive change. To do this, we’re offering the Persimmon Grant again! This year, we are offering $600 individually to at least two upcoming QTAPI Bay Area-based artists. Just as enjoying persimmons requires care and patience to really enjoy the sweet, ripe fruit, we're investing in these artists with the goal of our QTAPI communities reaping the rewards. Grantees have the option of a mini “digital residency” program as well, but participation in the digital residency is not required to be eligible to receive funds.
We do not require a budget or specific plan to use the money. The granted money should be used to support the artist’s creative practice. This could include supplies, materials, art classes, workshop fees, renting out studio space, website hosting fees, etc.
If you're not quite ready to apply but want to check out all of the questions in one spot, click here to see all of the application questions.
If typing out an application is inaccessible for you, you can set up a voice/video application appointment.
Not QTAPI but want to support? Donate to our QTAPI Joy Fund!
APPLICATION CRITERIA
*Why do we require a portfolio website link? We want to help and support QTAPI artists thrive. We strongly believe that an online portfolio website is key for an artist’s career growth in creative fields. If you do not currently have a portfolio, we encourage you to use free versions of websites such as Wix, Wordpress, or Behance to create a portfolio for this application. We won’t judge you on the design/aesthetic of your portfolio, so don’t worry about making your portfolio website look “perfect.” Please upload anywhere between 5-10 works into your portfolio.
Do I have to be living in the Bay Area at the time of applying to be eligible?
Our grant is open to artists based in the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara counties). We totally understand that due to these trying times, your living situation may be in flux. Please be specific about your situation when applying. The grant is open to anyone:
If I receive the grant, what can I use the money for? Do I need to provide a budget?
The grant money is given with the intention of supporting the artist’s creative practice. This could include supplies, materials, art classes, workshop fees, renting out studio space, website hosting fees, etc. A budget or project plan is not required to apply.
I am an artist but I am not sure whether my mediums qualify.
At this time, we are accepting applications from visual artists, poets and short-form writers. Visual arts can include (but are not limited to) painting, illustration, digital art, sculpture, metalwork, collage, textile arts, ceramics, fine art photography. For writers and poets, we are able to evaluate applications from those who have short-form works such as short stories, essays, poems and similar in their portfolio.
We have these restrictions in place as we are best able to support creatives in these fields/mediums at this time. However, if you think some portion of your work falls into these mediums, we encourage you to apply! Applicants will not be disqualified for not fitting into the eligibility requirements exactly.
Typing out long forms is difficult for me. Is there any other way to apply?
The application was designed to be filled out in 15 minutes or less. If typing out an application is challenging or otherwise inaccessible for you, you can set up a video/voice application. Please note: we prioritize the needs of people with disabilities/ disabled people, and neurodivergent individuals for voice/video application appointments. The purpose of this meeting is to facilitate the grant application process, and should not be considered a grant approval or decision. We prioritize the needs of people with disabilities/ disabled people, and neurodivergent individuals for voice/video application appointments.
Who won last year?
Artists Cairo and Menaja won last year! Click here to learn more about last year's winners.
What do you mean by digital residency?
We work with winners (if they opt in) to feature them on our Instagram page. Check out Persimmon Resident 2021 Cairo's features here, and Persimmon Resident 2021 Menaja's features here.
I am not QTAPI but I want to support this effort!
Yes! We're calling on all non LGBT allies to support the QTAPI community by donating to our QTAPI Joy Fundraiser. Every bit helps!
I still have questions!
Email us projects@cutfruitcollective.org ♡
Follow Mel on Instagram.
Paulina, one of our contributing writers, recently interviewed Mel.
Tell us about your art!
My art practice is forever growing and changing! I love painting both digitally and on walls. I am intentional about making my art accessible to everyone, so putting it online or on the street is ideal! When selling at markets and online, I like having options, such as stickers, prints and originals, so that everyone can get something if they resonate with my work!
Like so many Asian Pacific Islander Americans I grew up with a shame about being Asian. I grew up asserting "I'm American," now realizing what I strived to be was white. But during the collective awakening to AAPI struggles in this country, in reconnecting with my family, learning our history, I feel a love growing for the Chinese part of myself. My art recently explores my cross cultural identity as both Chinese and American.
Where did you grow up, and what communities and experiences shaped your identity as an artist?
I stayed with my grandma in Flushing, Queens until age 5, while my parents were working 24/7. When my parents were able to save enough to get their own place, I moved out to Long Island with them. Since Chinese is their first language, we were always in Flushing, which is home to many Asian immigrant communities. I went to a Chinese school in Flushing on Saturdays, so I would stay with my grandma on weekends. But it was really hard for my parents because they were working all the time and they had kids. I definitely feel most at home and at peace in Queens than on Long Island.
I loved growing up in Queens. My grandma grew vegetables in her backyard and she would share with all her neighbors. I didn't realize how radical and beautiful that was until now - sharing food you grow yourself. Now I'm working at the Queens Botanical Garden on their farm, where we grow food for the community. There's so much in place in Queens like that, that are by the people, for the people, like our community fridges and community gardens. I’m excited to live like my grandma and support my local community!
Can you share a bit about your artistic process?
Up until college, I would always craft and get excited just to make things. Though I’m grateful for the time and space to study art, after going to school for art, I became stuck in the critiquing part of creating. I was always thinking about how to make the perfect piece that other people approved of, which kind of stopped me from creating altogether. I now consciously minimize those thoughts and critique. I was creatively blocked and burnt out for a few years after graduating college, doing only commission work, making art for other peoples’ visions, businesses, etc. Only recently in 2020 I began to truly create from my heart again.
What got me going again was actually Inktober, an annual creative challenge folks practice on IG, where you’re supposed to draw or make something every day for the entire month of inktober! It got me doodling and making for fun again, which I believe was a gateway to open my heart - like visual journaling!
Sustainability is a huge part of your creative business. Can you tell me your process for integrating sustainability into your art?
Yes! I have been reflecting a lot on making my art practice more sustainable, so I'm learning new ways to improve my impact on the Earth and people. I'm currently in the process of switching over to all compostable stickers! I also only use home-compostable packaging from Elevate Packaging. All the plastic sleeves are made of PLA "plastic" which is made of a combination of corn starch and sugar cane!
I have been making recycled paper from paper in my recycling bin and from the local library. I use this handmade paper for my compostable stationery, books, etc! I have a growing collection of compostable journals & stationery!
I want to steer away from using factory labor for all of my art. I used to use Print On Demand services, which I will never do again - it can begin to mimic big capitalist designer companies that charge way too much for their goods and pay workers way too little. I deeply enjoy making paper, books, stickers, printmaking, and painting for myself, so I would like to work from joy instead of contributing to worker exploitation abroad.
So it’s all about being thoughtful and intentional about where materials come from, who’s working on it, and being transparent about it all! I didn’t start a business to hoard money! I started a business to be able to support myself so I can better help, and to be able to share my ideas and visions for a better world!
I love that you are always raising money for causes and you inspire me to do the same! Can you tell me more about how you incorporate mutual aid into your art practice?
Yes! Once I make money, it feels right in my heart to share it. And for example certain designs are inspired by Indigenous Water Protectors, so I send 100% of proceeds to their funds because it is art about their struggle. So for that, I'm donating that to the water protectors because they're the ones putting their lives on the line. So it feels right to give all proceeds to the cause.
I also funnel money to mutual aid funds for my black friends who need support. Even though everyone has their own struggle, it's extremely important to support black people in America because of how hard their lives are made by systemic racism, the generational trauma from slavery, the prison pipeline, etc. Knowing the history of black America, it only feels right to support as best as I can. I want my friends to feel safe and at peace at home and in their life and work.
Recently I organized a fundraiser for RAWA (The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) in response to the response of all the organizations supporting Ukraine. Although all war is deadly and horrible, there is war happening all over the world - yet no one is talking about or organizing to support the refugees. Is it a coincidence that these are mostly places where black and brown people live? I decided to make a fundraiser for Afghanistan. I researched and found RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. And I invited 19 creators of all mediums to participate by contributing a piece to sell to raise money for RAWA. We raised $486 in the end! I'd love to do this again in the future, but it takes a lot of time and energy, so I hope to work with other people next time!
What do you have in the works? Do you have any upcoming shows, sales or projects you’d like to promote?
I'll be doing my next market with the Hester Street Fair on Pier 17 for Pride! That’d on June 25. I just did one yesterday with Dave's Lesbian Bar and was surprised to sell out of a lot of stickers and prints, so I'll be making a lot more stickers! I'm excited to make more compostable ones! :) I'm also excited to be making more books with handmade recycled paper! And I’ll be selling at markets more once I catch up on some commissions. You can follow my work on instagram @therevolutionarymushroom to get updates about what I’m doing! I like sharing as much as I can there!
What’s your favorite fruit and do you have any cut fruit or fruit memories?
It changes. My mom used to cut fruit every night before bed. I really love honeydew and Korean pear when they’re good. Longan is one of my favorites too! We had watermelon, oranges and grapes a lot too. It’s hard to say favorites cause I love a lot of fruit!
]]>As an org that creates art for AAPI community care, much of our work focuses on joy and celebration. But the reality is that we often don’t feel so joyful and celebratory, especially in the wake of community violence and oppression. It is painful to exist in a world that does not protect, honor, and love us and all oppressed peoples. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
During difficult moments of collective trauma and grief, we truly believe that community care begins with self care. For many of us AAPI, we are used to the idea of taking care of others, sometimes at the expense of our own wellbeing. But it’s important to remember: you are a part of your community, too. When you begin to process, grieve, and heal, the community heals too. Ultimately, by taking care of ourselves, we take care of each other.
Self care is the practice of maintaining a healthy relationship with yourself. When we engage in self care, we do things to nurture our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. The term self care has been increasingly co-opted by brands to refer to luxury purchases and treatments. While we have nothing against a bath bomb or a sheet mask, self care doesn’t mean buying expensive stuff. And despite its name, self care also doesn’t have to be something you do alone! We see self care as a way to connect more deeply with ourselves, which in turn allows us to better show up for others and our community.
For many AAPI, self care may feel “selfish,” but there is nothing wrong with prioritizing your own well being. For Team CFC and contributors, self care can look like:
It is important to note that part of self-care may include stepping away or disengaging with distressing media. Some studies show that repeated media exposure to mass violence events can fuel a cycle of distress and cause increased anxiety. You are not morally obligated to share or view violent and distressing media. You are not a “bad” or negligent community member when you prioritize your mental wellbeing. Silence does not always equal complicity. Sometimes, it simply means you are listening.
This is not to say that we should aim to be ignorant about current events, but sharing distressing content in the name of “raising awareness” is not always necessary. We can consider our own mental well being as well as our communities’ when deciding to share or consume content that could be re-traumatizing or triggering.
Self Care is one of many tools
Self care is just one tool within our arsenal to manage our own wellbeing and in turn, our communities’ well being. We want to make it clear that self care is not the solution to large problems and systems of oppression — we can’t self care our way out of abusive situations or systemic racism. And self care is not a one-size-fits all tool. What constitutes self care will be different from each person, depending on their individual wellness goals as well as life situation. For some, self care may look like a K-beauty sheet mask, for others it could look like signing up to receive mutual aid.
Ultimately, the point of self care is to recognize that we all deserve to be treated with compassion, and that begins within. In a world that is hard, we can be caring and attentive to ourselves. By utilizing self care, we can feel more empowered and ready to address larger issues in our lives and communities.
Affirmations:
Follow Dane on Instagram and Tiktok
Cut Fruit Collective: How would you describe your art style?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: Oooh… How would I describe my art style? I’ve written so many statements and I still don’t even know how to describe it. I think it’s… Above everything I try to just be honest or earnest. The style is not so… It's not too serious when it doesn't have to be, it's not too cute when it doesn't have to be. It's unsure a lot of the time. It's always a lot of open ended questions or uncertainty. That speaks to my experience in the moment. I think that’s the main goal.
Whenever I look at my art, I've never been ashamed of any of my earlier works because every work I’m like “that’s true to how I felt then.”
Whimsical uncertainty, honest uncertainty.
Cut Fruit Collective: What are some of your inspirations?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: A lot of my work is research based, so I usually like to say that I do a lot of front research, and then those are the lego blocks that I store in my brain. I will pull out those blocks later on and fidget with the facts. I will be like “I remember this or I remember this picture, I remember this.”
Inspiration wise I always return back to work of artists like Yoshitomo Nara, Otani Workshop, which is bad cuz if you look those artists up they look a lot like works that I’ve made in the past.
But just more austere cuteness vibes.
Cut Fruit Collective: Can you share a bit about your artistic process? Is your process different when working with pottery versus painting?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: That’s a really good question because up until recently I've struggled with ceramics as a means of conveying an intense story. I think I was so… The languages of ceramics and painting were very separate for me. Painting was a lot easier to be like, “Oh, this is academic,” like I’m framing it, putting it in this weird juxtaposition, whereas often when I was making ceramics it was more of like a test of form and figure and material. I wasn't to the point where I was like “Oh I know how to make a pot about this particular research topic” up until recently. So only recently have I been able to kind of meld those together. Cuz now moreso, paintings are seeming more like sculptures and the pots are seeming more like paintings so it's kind of interesting how they are slowly starting to like meld into each other.
Cut Fruit Collective: You are Shimanchu-Japanese diaspora, how does this part of your identity influence your art? In what ways has growing up in Hawai’i influenced your work?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: It’s so funny cuz I am Japanese Shimanchu but my family is super mixed. My sister and I are the only ones in our family that are just Japanese Shimanchu. Like everyone else is very like, local mix, like Portuguese, Hawaiian, Chinese, everything.
I remember going to the continental US and the people talking about not fitting into a specific narrative and I was like, “Wow, I don't even fit in to your stories here,” because everyone is still kind of sub-sectioned into like East Asian American, Southeast Asian, etc. There's not much merger between a lot of these identities and I think being in that greyspace all the time has just shifted my mind to a more universal appreciation of small individual stories
I make a lot of work with Hawai’i iconography that are… unless you grew up here you wouldn't really get it, but that specific nature to it also makes it so personal and so relatable to a lot of people because even though they might not have shared the same TV stand as me, they have something that has that - favorite childhood book or whatever? Yeah! I think I always tell people, “It's not that we are together because we are the same, we are together because we're all so different,” and that mentality comes from growing up here in Hawai’i.
Cut Fruit Collective: I know that you are an advocate for the accessibility of art. What experiences played a part in developing your opinions on the accessibility of art?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: I grew up in a household that, one, didn't speak proper English, and two, my grandmother also didn't speak English. I went to a private school where it was kinda beaten out of me, it was like, “Hey you're not gonna speak local English-” I call it local english, other people call it pidgin, I don't think I speak fluent pidgin. When I was younger I did speak like, not in correct grammar, and then I went to private school they were like “Why do you sound like that?” you know? So this kind of consistent code-switching taught me, “Okay there's power in language,” and I thought that would mean the smarter I sounded, the better I would be approachable, or the more access I would have to the world. In school I realized that it separated me from my family, that I would learn all these things about art and it would be in this language that no one understood, art speak, that it was useless. So I was like, “Why not kind of bridge gaps?” or make that the point, to bridge a gap, to make it accessible, because art SHOULD be accessible regardless of what language you speak. So yeah, that’s a big part of it, kind of going through the stage of education. Like why is some thoughts only written out in this one phrase, when it could easily be translated into another phrase?
Cut Fruit Collective: Is that part of why you have been a tiktok creator and doing those videos?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: Yeah it’s kind of funny cuz I got tiktok because I wanted a hobby away from art. I made one video about an art piece that I loved and it went viral. I already knew I loved talking about art, and I love translating art to people because I know it’s difficult at times, but I was like, “Yeah! Why not do this?” cuz already so much of my practice was to make art - like to make people’s viewing of art more comfortable, to be more intimate. So I was like social media was just another means or media to do that.
Cut Fruit Collective: What do you have in the works?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: Right now I'm just working at the artspace that I run near Ward (Honolulu, Hawai’i). That's been a fun experience. I have a few new pieces that I'm working on that are a lot more open ended questions. I'm making this one pot that I’m going to call my Chicken Skin Pot that's gonna have all of these Hawai’i ghost stories painted on it, but it's all black and metallic. It's kind of more, I'm trying to do more research ceramic works. Translating more into that medium.
Cut Fruit Collective: What’s your favorite fruit and do you have any cut fruit or fruit memories?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: My favorite fruit is strawberry. I’ve always loved strawberries, my whole life. It's one of those fruits that I can eat a lot of it and get really sick and still eat it later.
I’m allergic to mango, I eat it all the time though. I’ve just never stopped eating it. I remember there was a story about me as a kid and I loved pickled mango and my mom found me one day eating pickled mango out of the jar in the fridge and I was as red as the pickled mango. It was actually sad, I don't know if I'm still allergic that bad but I would get rashes from eating mango. I think it was from the sap.
Cut Fruit Collective: It was worth it though?
Dane Hi’ipoi Nakama: Mhm, I love pickled mango.
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“Have you eaten yet?” Many of us are intimately familiar with this question, understanding that it means much more than simply wondering if we’ve eaten recently. Food is a central part of many AAPI cultures, with many of our celebrations and gatherings revolving around the ritual of cooking and sharing a meal with family, friends, and community.
So, when we as AAPI come up against shame around food, whether that is through a hurtful “stinky lunch box” experience or unrealistic body standards, it can be especially painful. When we feel shame about food and, in turn, our bodies, we may also feel shame about our People, our culture, and the way we love each other.
These feelings of shame directly affect our physical, mental, and emotional health—studies have shown that Asian American women experience higher rates of disordered eating than other women of color. Additionally, Asian/Pacific Islander men may be at higher risk for developing eating disorders when compared to Black and White men. While disordered eating is complex and can be influenced by many factors, some of the difficulties we experience around food can be linked to diet culture.
What is diet culture? Diet culture describes cultural beliefs that prioritize appearance and body shape over wellbeing. Because of these beliefs, we may pursue fad diets that promise a certain body shape and incorrectly equate body size with health. There is no way to assess someone’s health by simply looking at their body size or weight. BMI, a measurement commonly used to gauge health through weight, was actually created for statistical purposes in the 19th century and was never meant to be used as a measure of individual health.
In the U.S., diet culture is also rooted in racism, specifically Anti-Black racism, with slimness historically being attributed to whiteness and the myth of racial superiority. It has since extended to apply to any culture outside of whiteness, including AAPI cultures, making navigating relationships with body, food, and self even more challenging. In fact, our cultural foods are often considered inherently “unhealthy” and in need of intervention.
There are many examples of non-AAPI chefs, business owners and medical professionals claiming that AAPI food must be changed in order to become “healthy,” implying that it is not inherently nutritious or nourishing. This demonization of our cultural foods is a form of forced assimilation and creates yet another barrier to us as AAPI seeking support for body image and food relationship concerns.
Sometimes pressures to eat or look a certain way are also put on us by those closest to us and/or from within our own cultures. This may look like unsolicited commentary on your weight or pressure to eat more food than you’re comfortable with. When faced with these pressures and stigmas at the internal, familial, and societal levels, it is no wonder that AAPI needing support for body image and disordered eating find it difficult to both reach out and receive quality care.
While harmful comments from family may cross our personal boundaries, we can also examine them with understanding and cultural context, keeping in mind generational trauma. Consider:
We have the power to change the narrative. How can we as AAPI redefine what beauty standards mean to us and reclaim our relationship with food? Here are some things we can keep in mind:
Affirmations for AAPI:
Sources:
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In honor of AAPI Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month, our intern and clinical mental health counseling student Amanda will be addressing AAPI mental health topics every Monday. This week, Amanda will be diving into the cultural roots of mindfulness. If you like this series, you can show your support to Amanda here.
Mindfulness in American popular culture is a trending concept, used to encourage people to “live in the moment” and “acknowledge feelings.” However, this Western, secularized version of mindfulness actually has deep roots in many different cultures, including Asian and Pacific cultures. Though its definition varies across these cultures, there are a few common themes, such as a focus on the breath and present awareness of the body, mind, or feelings.
From the ancient Vedic concept of smrti, the practice of Zen Buddhism’s zazen, or the Native Hawaiian breathing exercise Noho Pū, examples of mindfulness abound in Asian and Pacific Islander cultures. Some examples of mindfulness concepts include:
In addition to helping people feel more connected to themselves and their heritage, mindfulness has many benefits. It can help foster a sense of appreciation for the present and release of worry about the future, in turn leading to greater empathy and kindness for the self and others. Studies show that mindfulness can help reduce stress, boost working memory, and even give increased immune functioning.
Western adaptations of mindfulness can be traced back to several sources, though the biggest contributor was arguably Jon Kabat-Zinn and his “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” course, which would later be influential to the field of psychotherapy, specifically mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy. Kabat-Zinn made teachings of mindfulness from Zen Buddhism more palatable to a Western audience by stripping it of all religious/cultural teachings or undertones.
He has stated that he “bent over backwards” to remove any “risk of [mindfulness] being seen as Buddhist, new age, eastern mysticism or just plain flakey,” which perpetuates the biased assumption that Asian and Pacific beliefs are inferior to “modern” Western practices. While it is true that no singular culture can claim ownership of the complex concept and practice of mindfulness, the intentional separation of practice from source, in this case Zen Buddhism, is part of a larger trend in the mental health field of appropriating wellness frameworks from marginalized peoples.
But engaging in mindfulness is not an inherently appropriative act. Mindfulness has always been a powerful tool for many people across many cultures, today and throughout history, in maintaining their mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness. We can choose to engage in mindfulness thoughtfully and intentionally, making efforts to understand the cultural roots of the specific practice we’re interested in, especially if such practices are protected by their respective cultures.
Want to bring some more AAPI mindfulness into your life? While mindfulness can look like spending a few minutes meditating with an app, it can also look like:
Affirmations for AAPI:
Trauma is often characterized as an individual struggle. We see this in individual diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or acts of abuse or harassment from one person to another. While trauma can certainly affect us as individuals, it is not always the whole picture. Generational trauma describes trauma & trauma responses that have been passed down from generation to generation.
You notice that the collection of expired sauces and spices your parent keeps in the kitchen continues to grow. You ask your parent, “Why don’t we keep some of this and toss out what's expired?” They become angry, yelling, “It’s wasteful to throw away perfectly good food! You never know when you’re going to need this!”
While it may seem like an overreaction, consider their life: Did they grow up in poverty? Have they experienced periods of time when they did not have what they needed to live well? Taking a big-picture look at their life may reveal some understandable reasons for their reaction.
Often, the effects of trauma will be passed down through behaviors, feelings, memories, and language. Trauma that can affect multiple generations include:
Recognizing the sheer violence, brutality, and trauma we and our ancestors have experienced or are currently experiencing can feel overwhelming. Feelings of hopelessness, grief, despair, numbness, and rage are valid. Physical sensations, like a tightness in the chest, heaviness in the shoulders, or nausea in the stomach are natural. We can take time to sit with these feelings and observe how they affect our emotions, body, and community.
In Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora communities, we may see generational trauma appear as:
How can we as AAPI break these cycles of generational trauma while also building upon generational strengths? After all, our ancestors did not only pass down trauma. Their adaptive and resourceful coping skills served as strengths that allowed them to survive difficult experiences. Their skills live on in us.
We do not have to heal this generational trauma alone. Our generational strengths make us:
We can draw from the wisdom of our elders, asking them to share their stories and perspectives to pass on to generations to come. We can acknowledge where we can grow, taking what our elders have learned and shaping it into something that helps us thrive, not just survive.
We can pass the baton to future generations, creating Asian and Pacific Islander communities where we no longer have to be resilient, but still choose to be–because it is a way for us to carry on our ancestors’ legacy.
Affirmations for AAPI:
References
]]>In honor of AAPI Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month, our intern Amanda will be addressing AAPI mental health topics every Monday this May! Amanda is a queer, neurodivergent Vietnamese-Filipina clinical mental health counseling student currently interning at Cut Fruit Collective for her master’s program. Today's topic is boundaries in AAPI families. If you like this series, you can show your support to Amanda here.
Boundaries help us protect our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing by encouraging us to reflect on and express our needs. When we set clear boundaries, we can take the time to make sure they are flexible and adaptive by considering the current context, our needs, and the other person’s boundaries. This way, we can establish space for ourselves while maintaining our integrity and respect for others.
Your parent has cut some fruit for you. You finish the plate of cut fruit and tell your parent, “Thank you for the fruit! I’m feeling very full now and I won’t eat anymore fruit this morning.” This is an example of clear boundary setting. You expressed your needs and current state (gratitude and no longer being hungry) and state what actions you will be taking (you will not eat any more fruit this morning).Your parent starts immediately cutting more fruit and says, “Nonsense, you need to eat more,” and puts another plate of fruit in front of you. In response, you say, “Thank you for always taking care of me when I'm home. I'll enjoy this fruit for dessert later after dinner,” and put the fruit into the fridge. You’ve enforced your boundaries (not eating anymore fruit this morning) in an adaptive and respectful way (expressing your gratitude and stating that you will eat the fruit later).
It can be difficult for us as AAPI to set boundaries, especially within the context of family. Many AAPI may feel a need to honor our elders & uphold our family’s reputation, whether that’s due to pressure from our cultural norms or a sense of gratitude to those who came before us. Loyalty to one’s family is a core tenet of many Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, from hiya and kapwa in Filipino culture to 孝 (Mandarin: xiào) in Chinese culture. While we may love our family dearly, this pressure to uphold family reputation can make it hard for us to define our own identities as individuals and openly seek mental health care.
At the same time, this family loyalty is often framed in direct opposition to the push from individualistic Western cultural values to be hyper independent and completely self-sufficient. We may have even been told that some of our cultural values of community care and devotion to family are harmful or toxic because they make us “too dependent” on our family and others. However, it is precisely those values that have helped our people thrive and care for each other for hundreds of generations.
This is not to excuse real behaviors or patterns that are damaging, traumatic, or abusive. Rather, we can add nuance and push back against biased narratives to reclaim our mental health with cultural context, asking “How can we as people of Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora hold boundaries that respect our needs while also honoring our culture and heritage?” We do not have to choose between ourselves or our families. It is possible for us to honor both.
Like all skills, learning to set boundaries takes practice and patience. There’s nothing wrong with taking small steps first. Boundary setting as AAPI may look like:
When your boundaries are ignored, know that feelings of betrayal, hopelessness, numbness, grief, and anger are valid. It can also feel hard to trust that your boundaries will be respected in the future. We can take time to step back, affirm our feelings, assess if the boundary we set was clear and flexible, and re-engage when we are ready to reiterate our boundary. Remember, protecting your boundaries in the moment may feel difficult, uncomfortable, or scary, but doing so is an investment into your long-term wellbeing.
Affirmations for AAPIs:
References
Cut Fruit Collective: Tell us about your photography/How would you describe your photography style?
Tori Toguchi: I personally feel that my personal work is a mixture of capturing the beautiful moments in the mundane, as well as from the relationships I would like to build or have with the individuals I photograph.
Cut Fruit Collective: How did you end up choosing photography as your artistic medium?
Tori Toguchi: I’m afraid my story is rather dull. One day near my 13th birthday, my mom let me borrow her small point shoot a digital camera at the beach. I began taking pictures of mundane things like a plumeria that fell from a tree. Photography just morphed into something I found enjoyment in and it’s been that way since.
Cut Fruit Collective: What would you say is your inspiration in your photography?
Tori Toguchi: I have always been drawn to the work of of Mao Ishikawa, Larry Sultan, Jim Goldburg, and Rinko Kawauchi. Each of these photographers influence my style of work and the way I see a photograph.
And while this isn’t the extensive list I would like it to be, I also look up to photographers like AnRong Xu, Rachel Halemanu, Josiah Patterson, Jared Soares, Zanele Muholi, Shirin Neshat, Kat Kuo, Wendy Red Star, Jo Metson Scott, and Michael Vince Kim.
Cut Fruit Collective: Where did you grow up, and what communities and experiences shaped your identity as an artist?
Tori Toguchi: I was born and mostly raised on Oʻahu (on Kanaka Maoli land) but I also grew up in Oregon, in the area of the Chafin or Chifin Kalapuyans peoples.
My grandfather has always pushed and supported my interest in our Ryukyuan (Uchinanchu) heritage. My grandmother from Japan regularly nurtured my identity and participation in Japanese culture. In the early days of my photography, I never emphasized my heritage in my work because I was surrounded by those with similar experiences as me. It was not until I moved that I began to see the importance. I started reaching out both in real life and on the internet on what it means to be part of the diaspora. I received such multifold responses that I decided it was important enough for me to photograph and document and create a project out of those feelings.
In 2018, I had the opportunity to participate in a program in Ginoza Village, one of my ancestral hometowns in Okinawa Honto. I trained with individuals who ran Kanna Drive-In, a restaurant that was repurposed into an art gallery by Yu Zakimi, Yuta Nakama, and Tomoya Ogoshi. It made Uchinā (Okinawa) a tangible place for me and inspired me to become more involved in creating spaces that allowed for connection and a telling of our history and culture from our own voices.
Recently, I have created a Shimanchu Discord, and am a co-creator of the Ichariba Choodee Podcast: Okinawan Voices & Stories, as well as the Shimanchu Diaspora Visual Archives.
Cut Fruit Collective: Are there any photo series or projects you’re hoping to do in the future?
Tori Toguchi: brother passed away in 2011, when he was fourteen years old. After he passed away, I realized that I hadn’t spent enough time taking photographs of him and there was very little I could look back at to remember the physical space he took up in the world. The loss of my brother made me more engrossed with the idea of memorabilia and the ways we remember the people in our lives. Generation of Memories, which is a project focusing on my grandparents, is one that I hope I can continue for as long as I possibly can.
Currently, I’m moving into the realm of Library Science and I would love to continue to build spaces for resources and representation that have always been a part of my photographic work and goals.
Cut Fruit Collective: What’s your favorite fruit and do you have any cut fruit or fruit memories?
Tori Toguchi: My favorite fruit is シークヮーサー (Shikwasa), which is similar to Calamansi but is native to the Ryukyus and Taiwan.
While Shikwasa is my favorite fruit, the fruit of my childhood is blackberries. My mom would send my brother and me to an after-school camp, and there would always be blackberry bushes nearby. I would always go to the bush and pick the berries which were always sweet and juicy. ✨
The Abolish (r)ICE shirt is one of their ongoing projects to support Southeast Asian community members fighting deportation. 100% of the proceeds from the sales go to help with legal fees, translation needs, commissary accounts, and re-entry funds. Follow them to stay updated with the next print run at @k4t3ng!
Cut Fruit Collective: Tell us about your art!
Kat: I’m an illustrator, filmmaker, carpenter, puppeteer, and much of my work is rooted in community organizing.
I often use artmaking as a way to digest current events/the endless cycles of bad news. Sometimes it feels like the only tool that is empowering in the face of the overwhelming violence of this world. For example, when striking garment workers were facing brutal repression in Cambodia some years back, I tried doing things like posting hashtags, painting a banner, and gathering in front of offices of power, but they simply closed the curtains and ignored us. I decided to try something different, and set up a sewing machine outside of the H&M in Times Square and sat in a solo solidarity protest that ended up getting international attention.
I see art as a way to offer unexpected experiences, in hopes that someone may feel something that changes the way they see things, which may, in some small way, change the world.
Cut Fruit Collective: Could you tell us more about your Three Ladies shirt - what inspired the design? How did you choose anti-deportation efforts as your cause? What have been the things you are most proud of for this fundraiser?
Kat: I drew this design a few years ago as ICE ramped up attacks on Southeast Asian refugees. At the time, there wasn’t as much public awareness about how much violence our community was facing from these institutions. I had a lot of help from folks in the community to translate "Free Them All" in Hmong, Khmer, Lao, and Vietnamese, and we added Burmese in 2021. I have always appreciated the simple, bold graphics that decorate everyday bags of rice, and it just felt natural to reimagine the iconic Three Ladies as freedom fighters for the SEA diaspora.
The first print run was for folks at The Fang Collective who wore the shirts while blockading ICE facilities in Massachusetts (and succeeded in getting those federal contracts canceled). Since then, I have shared this design to support work at Release MN 8, VietUnity, the Black Immigrant Collective, Asian Prisoner Support Committee, and other people fighting deportation all across the country.
I now partner with a local collective, Eagle Screenprint, to do limited edition runs and send the proceeds directly to deportees in Cambodia. It’s important for us all to remember that the fight isn’t over when removal orders are signed, planes take off and names leave the headlines. We have to continue to care for our community members that have been ripped from their homes and families.
The next batch is coming up in April, and you can sign up to get the updates at www.kateng.co/abolishice!
Cut Fruit Collective: Can you share a bit about your artistic process?
Kat: I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I spend a lot of time stewing (read: procrastinating) and have a hard time starting things, so I often try to kickstart projects by tracing, collaging, or working with found objects.
While I like sketching ideas out on paper before bringing them into Illustrator or Procreate, I have really started to appreciate working digitally. It has allowed me to have the freedom to be experimental and try new things– I always have a ton of layers with different versions to compare and contrast at some point in the process.
I enjoy combing through chaos, finding the pieces that fit, and putting the bigger picture together, whether I’m editing documentary film work or building paper mache puppets.
Recently, I’ve been returning to automatic drawing (a fancy way to say doodling) as a way to chart my subconscious world, practice focus, and be creative for the sake of creating.
Cut Fruit Collective: Where did you grow up, and what communities and experiences shaped your identity as an artist? How did they shape you?
Kat: My dad came to Minneapolis in 1979 as a refugee from the genocide in Cambodia, where he lost his entire family. My mother has never lived outside of Minnesota. I grew up in a small Driftless river valley on Dakota land. A lot of my neighbors were hippies working on prairie restoration, and instead of corn and soy, the fields around my home grew millions of wildflowers. For the first part of my life, the only Asian people I knew were my sister and my dad.
I decided to travel and seek out community and a sense of belonging. I eventually made it to my father’s hometown of Battambang where I worked at a small arts school. I struggled with not being able to speak the language and felt disconnected from both the distant family and new friends that I found, as well as the rather problematic expat community that were exploiting artists there. I think that experience cemented for me that art (and the communities that make it) must have an analysis of power.
Back in the US, I learned a lot from working with many different kinds of people on grassroots campaigns including Hurricane Sandy relief efforts in NYC, the battle against the Dakota Access Pipeline on Oceti Šakowiŋ lands, and the fights for housing and immigration justice in Minneapolis. I have found my place making illustrations, screenprinting shirts, painting banners, and producing short films.
Being more rooted in Minneapolis the last few years and through the pandemic has helped me reconnect with the underground arts community here. I’ve been really grateful for spaces like Monkeybear, a program that supports Black, Native, and POC artists to develop creative and technical skills in contemporary puppetry and community storytelling.
Cut Fruit Collective: What do you have in the works? Do you have any upcoming shows, sales or projects you’d like to promote?
Kat: I am in a period right now where I am focusing on building new skillsets. I decided this year that I’m going to learn how to animate, make stained glass, and practice basic jewelry metalworking.
For a long time, I’ve been resistant to the idea of trying to make a living with my art, but honestly can’t stand being exploited by employers anymore. I’m exploring the idea of doing limited runs of other designs with Eagle Screenprint, keep an eye out for updates on my insta, @k4t3ng!
Oh, and I am joining the curatorial team of Puppet Cabaret, a program for emerging artists to create new, short, experimental, and weird puppet shows for all to enjoy with live music and waffles on demand. The next one will be sometime this summer 2022!
Cut Fruit Collective: What’s your favorite fruit and do you have any cut fruit or fruit memories?
Kat: I’ve always been into sour fruits. Grapefruits were no. 1 for most of my childhood (a time when I did not know the majesty of pomelos).
I also appreciate the versatility of mangoes. My auntie in Cambodia introduced me to the concept of eating a piece of mango with rice and ត្រីងៀត (trey ngeat), a slightly sweet and salty dried fish, and my mind was blown. I think Southeast Asians are geniuses at flavor pairings.
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Her recently released film Turning Red explores the tensions of growing up particularly through the lens of a third culture kid. Set in 2002 Toronto Chinatown, Mei Lee is a 13 year-old girl navigating the chaos of dichotomies between youth and puberty as well as honoring her parents and becoming her own person—all with the “inconvenience” of transforming into a giant red panda when she feels strong emotions. Complete with tamagotchis, boy bands, epic mother-daughter fights, intergenerational trauma, and tweenage girl lust—let’s just say we felt simultaneously seen and attacked by all of the exacting details.
We chatted with Domee about tween life, artistic process, Chinatowns, anime, and her favorite fruit.
Image courtesy of Pixar
Daphne
Well, thank you so much Domee! We absolutely LOVE the film, and of course we're such big fans of what you've done with Bao and now with Turning Red. There are so many factors that make this such an important film for people like us and our community.
Maya
So I'll jump off with this question—coming from certain unnamed Cut Fruit team members—who may or may not have drawn or written anime fan fiction as an outlet for teenage lust, and may or may not be ashamed of it now—I need to ask, why did you feel the need to expose this part of Asian American/diaspora girl culture?
Domee
Oh, I think because it's just such it was such a formative part of my life and it was something that I was embarrassed about for a really long time and I tried to hide it. But then I think kind of coming into my career as an artist, I realized, like, wow, like, I the reason why I'm here [in my career] is because of those, you know, horny drawing spirals I got into as a tween and the really strong friendships I made through like, fandoms, and through obsessing over, you know, anime or books or fictional boys and stuff. And it should be celebrated! Not to be ashamed of or hidden away. And I also just think it's really funny. And it's not something that you really see in a lot of movies or media, but that is so common. Like every female artist that I ever talked to, they have had like a secret, or like an old DeviantArt account, or a Live Journal account. For people our age, you know, it's like, so common, but yet, it hasn't really been explored yet. So I really wanted to shine a light on it, and let us all come out of the shadows together.
Maya
Yeah, that's really true! I feel like my friendships from that time period are lifelong.
So I think for me personally as an Asian diaspora artist, I find that there's often a tension of wanting my work to be reflective of my own experiences and be true to myself. But at the same time, I'm aware of stereotypes and tropes and some of which are actually a part of my life. I wanted to know how you reconcile this tension in the movie but also just generally speaking?
Domee
Yeah, that's a really good question. In the movie it was important for us to depict, as truthful of an experience of this Asian Canadian girl and her relationship with her mom as possible. And then that meant depicting a lot of characteristics that could have easily gone one dimensional or stereotypical. You know, her being an overachiever, her mom being very strict or protective. But I think elements like that go into stereotype—a negative stereotype in media when you just depict the surface level characteristics of those characters, and you don't dive deeper into why you see these characteristics coming up in certain cultures. And that was important for us, like anytime we like wrote a scene with Ming—she was doing something kind of crazy or kooky. We always remember that it came from a place of love and wanting to protect Mei. And Sandra Oh was tapped into that when she was performing as Ming. I think that really grounded the character. At least even when we didn't agree with what Ming was doing on screen, we understood why she was doing it. I think it's always important for your audience to know why a character is doing the things that they're doing. They become one dimensional [and stereotypical] when you don't understand why they're doing it or they're just kind of doing things or making choices automatically. That's when they become really shallow. So I think just always making sure it comes from a place of understanding.
Image courtesy of Pixar
Daphne
I guess another point is it also becomes a stereotype when there's judgment of their actions. I feel like Turning Red did a really great job of kind of, not necessarily—I mean, you know, there may be some kind of moments where you're like cringing or you're seeing that as a stereotype. But then it wasn't like there was judgment being doled on screen. And there's always like you said, there's that understanding of why they're acting the way they are.
Domee
Yeah,it just comes from the character. It always comes from characters, and understanding why characters are making the choices that they're making. And then it also helped that we had multiple Asian women in leadership on the team. I worked with Julia Cho, who is Korean American. She's the screenwriter of the movie. Then Rona Liu was the production designer who's basically in charge of the whole look of sets, the character designs. I could trust that between the three of us, we could make sure that we are authentic and sensitive to the stuff we were putting on the screen. Then also working with cultural consultants, too, because even though we're three Asian women, we also have blind spots. None of us grew up in Chinatown. None of us are Cantonese. So it always helped us to rope in and get experts and people actually from the community and just to chat with them. Plus [we consulted] other people around the studio to just act as a gut check and that helped a lot too.
Daphne
Right. I guess speaking of while we're on that topic, what made you want to set the story in Toronto Chinatown?
Domee
Yeah, well, it wanted to set it in Toronto, because it's my hometown. We always feel like Toronto is pretending to be other cities in movies, but it's never celebrated just as itself. It's such a diverse and unique and awesome city that welcomed me and my parents when we first immigrated to Canada that I really wanted to have the chance to depict it on screen. Back then in the early 90s there just wasn't a lot of Chinese stuff in general in the West. So for my parents and me, even though we're not from the Cantonese, Taishanese area, where a lot of the Chinatown residents are from, it was the only kind of slice of home that we could find in the city. So we would go grocery shopping there, we eat dim sum there, and that's how we got more into Cantonese culture and food. It's such a nostalgic and awesome place that you see in a lot of big cities too. It was just an awesome opportunity to be able to depict that and celebrate that on the big screen. I did a little bit of it with Bao, and I wanted to do more with this movie.
Maya
So kind of related to when we were talking about the sort of ideal minority representation—I noticed some minority groups and older generations, especially—I think my own parents are like this. They don't necessarily want more realistic and human representations that are potentially more unflattering. They just want something that feels very ideal, and I think in their minds when it comes to media representation, like the historical representation of minority groups has been so offensive and racist that they feel like they want the pendulum to really swing in the other direction. There's this scarcity mindset of there's like only a few slots available. So the slots that we do have should be ideal and should make us look really good. I think I personally appreciate that you explore the more messy and complicated sides of Asian diaspora identity, but I wanted to know your thoughts on what ideal representation looks like to you and whether you feel there's an order of being "ideal first, and then we can be human," you know?
Domee
That's a good question. Yeah, I think the biggest solution to that is just to tell more Asian stories—different kinds of Asian stories. So then eventually, we have as much variety in our movies and TV shows as like Caucasian characters. So we can have like, you know, idealistic Asian characters, but then also we can have like really shitty crazy characters. I'd love like a There Will Be Blood with an Asian Daniel Day Lewis, that would be amazing! Yeah, I think that's the best way to do it is just to try to create more media out there with all kinds of Asian characters so that our parents are happy and we're happy too!
Every artist, Asian or otherwise—they're just one perspective and experience and they have their own tastes and preferences. It's a lot of pressure to represent an entire group of people with your work. At the end of the day, I think the best thing to do is just to tell more stories so that we can have a variety of characters to look up to, judge, or relate to.
Maya
Yeah, and that way, there's less pressure too.
Daphne
Right. Any advice for budding young API creative storytellers looking to get into the entertainment industry?
Domee
Oooh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you feel that pressure, right? I think chatting with a lot of young, AAPI artists who are entering the industry and who want to tell stories—they're wrestling with that themselves. I say, focus on what you want to see, and what you want to tell. And then I think that other stuff will just naturally fall into place. I think what helped me the most was finding a support system—a group of like minded, you know like in the movie, nerdy girls who liked all the things that I liked. We could all kind of commiserate together, help each other out, but also give each other a bit of the tough feedback that we need. Then we kind of help each other through our careers by being there for each other, because it gets really lonely, especially when you're like, a person of color, a woman in this industry. So I think just making sure that you're not alone, or that you never feel alone. I think that's huge.
Daphne
For sure, having that network to help support you. It's really important.
Maya
What were important, cultural elements that you wanted to make sure made it into this story? Was there anything that you hoped to include that actually ended up needing to be cut? And what culturally specific details about the film, whether it's Asian, Canadian 2000s, tween life, etc. are you most proud of?
Domee
Ah, man there's so much good stuff that we're able to cram into this movie. One of my favorite scenes is in the beginning of the movie where Mei's at home with her mom and they're making dumplings and watching TVB, this Cantonese soap opera on TV that's actually this Hong Kong production company that makes a ton of hilarious and dramatic Cantonese soap operas. Then her dad's cooking in the background.
I just love being able to squeeze all of those little slice of life details in the movie, in the background and the setting. That just really makes it feel very specific. This fun detail, when Jin goes into the basement, like when her dad's in the basement in the background, you can't really see it, but he's hung up Chinese sausages and there's newspaper on the ground. It's just a nod to my dad who always loved to cure meats in our basement and in the laundry room for some reason. We don't have a big basement, so I'd always have to weave my way through these dangling pieces of salted meat and get hit by one while I try to do my laundry.
Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff. There's toilet paper on the coffee table. I think their kitchen range is wrapped in tin foil. Yeah, it's all these awesome little slice of life, Asian immigrant home details that I was really proud that we could put in there.
Then stuff that we cut, it was mostly just for time. Then story details that were different—there was an earlier version where the temple played a bigger role in the plot. And at some point Mei or Ming thinks it's a great idea to use Mei's panda to draw more customers into the temple! Because I was drawing off of how a lot of Asian women in my life are like hustlers, and they are all about business. So Ming was more of like a little entrepreneur. But that character detail, we cut it because it just kind of complicated the whole story about a girl going through puberty and kind of being a metaphor for puberty. And then we're like, does that mean her mom's a pimp? Yeah, so we cut that! But there were fun scenes where Mei is doing a traditional fan dance as a panda, and her mom's just watching her from the sidelines like a proud pageant mom. Directly reminiscent of when I was in grade six. I was in this Chinese folk dance club and my face was all dolled up. I had to do these awkward fan dances and my mom would be like, "You're doing great!" Haha.
Image courtesy of Pixar
Daphne
Nice! Okay, so Turning Red utilizes some visual language borrowed from anime, and I know that's a huge influence for you. What was the decision behind using those elements and having that as your inspiration especially since Pixar is known for having a very specific kind of style and look?
Domee
Yeah, I feel like when we first started the movie, I really just wanted it to feel different. Like I wanted it to look different and feel different as a movie because our protagonist feels so different. All of the stylistic choices we made were to support Mei's character and her kind of story of how she sees the world. She's this spunky, energetic 13 year old girl. We just wanted to design the world through her eyes like really utilize romantic, feminine fresh colors for the city scape but also utilize just how exaggerated and cartoony and fun anime can be to really push Mei's expressions and emotions just to make the audience feel what Mei's feeling because she feels so much in this movie. Yeah, and it just felt like anime would be the perfect style to tell this story.
Also, just in general, that's kind of my aesthetic. My taste is just kind of somewhere in between eastern and western animation. I grew up watching Disney, Pixar, but also a ton of anime, a ton Miyazaki movies and Sailor Moon. So that's naturally what I lean towards as well. Also with every movie, you're working on it for four or five years so it feels like you should be pushing the envelope in some way with your movie. This felt like a really good opportunity to try to test what 3D anime could look like.
Daphne
Yeah, what was that process like? How was it adapting 2D type of references to 3D?
Domee
Oh, it took the entire crew holding hands and really diving deep into anime research. We just had amazing leads on this show who just studied anime sequences. We analyzed the camera. How do they move the camera in anime? And like expression changes—how they really just like snap to different expressions for comedy. We realized that if we wanted to stylize the movie, we had to do it across the board with each and every department. It was a lot of like tests and hit or miss. Like we could push it this far into 2D and then I'd be like, "Oh, that's too far. Let's reel it back a little bit." Then we found that sweet spot in the middle.
Daphne
Nice! Alright, last question. What's your favorite fruit? And do you have any favorite cut fruit memories?
Domee
Yeah, my favorite fruit? My favorite fruit in general is blueberries because they're really versatile, I can add them to everything. My favorite cut fruit memory—I have a pomelo memory where my mom and I and my dad, we'd buy a pomelo and slice it and peel it. But then my mom would just turn [the peel] into a pomelo hat and put it on her head! And then just like wear it for the day or she'll have me wear it for the day. She would say, "Oh, we used to do this when I was little because it smelled really nice and then it just makes you smell so fresh and citrusy all day!" So I just have these memories of me and her wearing our pomelo hats and kind of like putzing around the house doing stuff. Yeah, and I still do it to this day. It's very fun!
Daphne
I love it! Awesome! Well, thank you so much.
Maya
We really appreciate you talking to us. We both really love the film!
Daphne
Congratulations, Domee! We are so proud of you! And very excited to share this with our community.
Domee
Thank you so much!
]]>Chinzalée: My name is Chinzalée Sonami and I was born and raised in Oakland. I created PALA from my pottery practice when I decided that I wanted to do ceramics full time and needed to find a way to start selling my work so I could sustain doing it every day! I live here now with my own family, in East Oakland in my childhood home and truly love spending my time working with clay.
Cut Fruit: What’s your favorite fruit and do you have any cut fruit or fruit memories?
Chinzalée: My favorite fruits are either mangosteens or passion fruits. I have no real cultural connection to either except to say that it turns out passion fruits grow surprisingly well in Oakland!
Cut Fruit: Tell us about your art! Can you share more about what inspires your work?
Chinzalée: I fell into pottery a little over 10 years ago when I took a break from my job as a food buyer and was looking to take classes. I ended up in the same pottery studio as my father had been a member at, took a class, and became quickly obsessed. Today, I feel most inspired by unusual color combinations, pattern mixing and matching, and what I like to call harmonious clashing - when two or more colors or patterns that shouldn’t necessarily go well together find some kind of balance on a piece.
Cut Fruit: Where did you grow up, and what communities and experiences shaped your identity formation?
Chinzalée: I grew up in East Oakland. My mother is French and my father was Tibetan. I feel like Oakland had and continues to have a huge impact on me in a variety of ways, but in regards to my pottery, I feel hugely inspired by what I find to be a very bold color palette that feels very unique to Oakland, specifically in East & West Oakland.
Cut Fruit: Can you share a bit about your artistic process?
Chinzalée: I spend a lot of time walking, taking snapshots of color combinations I run into on my walks. My phone is filled with photos from my walks which I use later when glazing my pieces. A lot of inspiration comes from textiles, both French & Tibetan. France’s use of stripes are iconic at this point, but Tibet has an incredibly rich use of textiles in the home, all of which are very colorful. Most notably to me are the pangdens, which are aprons married Tibetan women wear everyday. They are all different and unique but all pangdens are made of very colorful horizontal stripes in seemingly random color combinations.
Cut Fruit: What are your favorite Tibetan New Year traditions?
Chinzalée: Like most people, my favorite Losar traditions center around the food that we use to celebrate the occasion. One of these traditions are the Khapses I make with my uncle, which are essentially beautiful fried dough shapes with powdered sugar. Every culture seems to have their take on a sweet fried dough, and Khapse is the Tibetan version.
Cut Fruit: Any favorite Bay Area Tibetan businesses?
Chinzalée: There is a thriving Tibetan community in the Bay Area that feels like it’s mostly concentrated in Berkeley/ El Cerrito & Richmond. There are a number of stores and restaurants but a couple favorite spots of mine for momos (steamed tibetan dumplings), and sha paley (basically a meat empanada), are Nomad on Solano in Berkeley and Tashi-Delek on San Pablo in El Cerrito.
Cut Fruit: We know that not all communities feel adequately represented by current AAPI community organizing. How can people best support Tibetan communities and artists in the diaspora and beyond?
Chinzalée: There is so much to say on this subject and it has taken me a while to understand my own feelings around where I fit in the AAPI umbrella and I will have to continue to do a lot of work on becoming more precise with my feelings around this subject. For now what I can say is that it often feels that a lot of the AAPI community organizing can be very centered around the Chinese community or that media representation of Asians, which is an undoubtedly very broad group of people to be grouped together, is often focused on the Chinese American experience. As a Tibetan I don’t find this particularly inclusive and very rarely do I feel represented in this group. There is so much nuance of experience that can get lost in these large groupings of populations and I find this is where the inclusivity can be lost. For example, it’s important to note that the Tibetan community you may come across here or elsewhere are not simply immigrants, but are exiled from their home country. China invaded Tibet in 1950 and continues to occupy it illegally. I think for Tibetans to feel more represented in the AAPI organizing, there needs to be an understanding that there is an ongoing genocide and cultural genocide at the hands of the People’s Republic of China in Tibet, and that there needs to be a lot more sensitivity in grouping Asians together, with more focus on understanding our differences and perhaps harm that has occurred between some of these groups.
]]>Cut Fruit: Hey Rosa! Could you introduce yourself and tell us about your business?
Rosa: I'm Rosa, founder of wildwonder. Wildwonder was inspired by healing tonics that my grandmother in China brewed for me growing up. She made a lot of tonics – not all of them are delicious by the way. So tonics with wild herbs, plants, botanicals and all sorts of things that I wouldn't even be able to name. But they were all supposed to be really good for me. In Chinese medicine, there is a lot of use of herbs and herbal teas. My mom does this still too when I go home. She makes these various teas with goji berries and herbs to calm my stress or help my digestive system. So that's really the inspiration. My grandmother really instilled in me the philosophy of food as medicine from a very early age. I've always believed in the power of natural remedies.
I'm also a foodie, as you know, and I love delicious flavors. I’m always traveling in search of the yummiest flavors. As a foodie, I don't think anyone should be giving a taste for health.
So I wanted to combine yummy flavors with the philosophy from my grandma (food as medicine) and herbal wisdom to create gut healing superfoods. And that's really what we're trying to do with wildwonder. We talk a lot about duality in our company. We’re using ancient wisdom combined with modern flavors. It's rooted in Asian culture and tastes like a California produce stand.
Our packaging is very whimsical, but at the same time our product really digs deep into the idea of food as medicine. If you think about kombucha (our product is not kombucha), kombucha is really rooted in Eastern culture as a fermented, better-for-you drink. We really bring that idea to the forefront and pair it with delicious trendy flavors.
Cut Fruit: Love that background of growing up with grandma with the herbal tonics. Are there specific herbs from a specific region in China in the wildwonder?
Rosa: That’s a good question. Even though this is a heritage-inspired product, it isn't necessarily tied to a city, specific region or country. Asian pear and mango are some of my favorite fruits, and that is reflected in the flavors of some of our products. But more importantly it’s the philosophy. I think heritage also means nostalgia to me. So really we are about bringing this aspect of my heritage and childhood and putting a modern twist on it. It’s about herbal philosophy, healing an idea about healing, and putting that in a drink.
We derive the fiber and prebiotics from all of these botanicals such as Jerusalem artichoke and chicory root. And all of the health benefits of our drinks are derived from the ingredients. For instance, in our Guava Rose flavor, we put elderberry in there and that’s really good for immunity. We also use turmeric and ginger in other flavors and that's very prevalent in Asian cultures as an anti-inflammatory with digestive benefits. So we’re kind of all over the place in terms of ingredients and not sourcing from one region or one country. It’s really about bringing this whole healing philosophy to the forefront.
Cut Fruit: Yeah that makes sense! Could you tell me a little bit about your journey to the US and your experiences growing up?
Rosa: I spent the first 12 years of my life in Beijing with my grandparents. So I actually didn't know my parents very well as a child. My parents came to Indiana for grad school and as immigrants were very focused on making a living. They initially focused on finishing up school, getting a job, and making sure that they had stability before they brought me over.
[Coming to the US] was definitely a shock. I didn't know anything about Western culture. I didn't even know any English outside of the alphabet. So I went from one very non-diverse place (China) to another very non-diverse place, but kind of in the opposite direction for me. At the time I didn’t even truly process that there was a cultural shock. Everything was so different.
I actually didn’t come here with any expectations. I just thought, I'm going to Indiana, I'm going to America, and I don’t know anything. I'm just going to go with an open heart.
I picked up English – I had an ESL teacher, which is actually a very funny story. I went to the largest public high school in Indiana that had 800 people in my class and I can count the number of Asians one one hand. They didn't have an ESL teacher who could speak Chinese. My school had found a Vietnamese ESL teacher assuming all Asians probably knew how to communicate with each other, though we obviously could not.
For me, it was very much about fitting in and learning English as fast as I could. I was trying to assimilate while also trying to really pick up American culture because I didn't know anything about pop culture. I didn't know what music people were listening to, or shows people were watching, all while struggling to understand anything that's going on.
So I think my whole middle and high school experience was just about learning and adopting new habits, new foods, new everything, and just about fitting in. We talk a lot about this idea of embracing differences nowadays. Now we have more representation in media, entertainment, and everywhere. But when I was growing up here, honestly, that thought of [embracing my differences] never even occurred to me. I didn't want to be too different even though I was already very different. I was just trying to be part of the community.
Cut Fruit: That’s such an incredible personal journey. In some ways it sounds so difficult. Do you feel like your parents understood how hard it would be for you? Did they prepare you in any way before you came over?
Rosa: My parents went through a very similar experience – they didn’t know English initially either [when they came over]. They were able to survive and make it through so they probably just assumed that I could do the same. They tried to support me, but they also didn’t really know how. There weren’t any resources out there on how to do that. I can give an example: they didn’t know about SATs or how I could apply for college. So that was very much a learning experience for me. My mom tried to help me a lot. I sometimes wish she had just let me watch TV to learn English and American culture. But instead she tried to go through American history with me. My first year here I obviously didn’t know any, (and neither did she). So we would read this history book together and we literally had to look up every other word in the book. That was challenging.
But ultimately, this experience of just learning by storm is also very similar to being an entrepreneur. I was very much used to that – throwing myself in the deep end hoping for the best but expecting the worst. I would never have any expectations.
One of the best decisions I made – honestly couldn't tell you why I even did this to myself – I wasn’t yet fluent [in English] and I decided to join the debate team as a sophomore in high school.
Cut Fruit: Oh wow!
Rosa: Yeah, my line of thinking at the time was that this is the best way for me to learn. And that was a very stressful and challenging experience because I wasn’t exactly fluent at the time. So having to defend my statements, understand counter arguments all in a time-limited fashion was very hard. But I would say it really helped me to present confidently, speak confidently and ultimately got me ready for college.
Cut Fruit: Wow, well good for you for doing that! Definitely see that theme of just taking the plunge! Kind of touching on that idea of culture, we’ve seen a lot of AAPI owned businesses lately that are really starting to move towards embracing heritage. What has that journey been like for you as someone who moved to Indiana in her adolescence and now runs a heritage-inspired business in San Francisco?
Rosa: Um, I mean, I'm loving it! It's so exciting to see this movement. There's so many organizations and businesses really embracing culture, embracing the differences and uplifting our voices. I think that's really exciting to see and it's really exciting to be part of the movement.
I would say part of the reason I started wildwonder was to connect with a personal passion of mine – food and beverage. Because food is such a central part of Asian culture. And it really connects me with my grandmother. My grandmother raised me so I have a very close relationship with her. So it’s also about doing something that’s meaningful. Because entrepreneurship is really hard. If there’s no soul or personal purpose, then it’s really hard to keep going. Especially when the times get tough. Especially during COVID, our business basically got wiped out in the beginning. We were very much focused on offices and food service initially and had to switch to retail and online.
But yeah, if I didn’t have the mission portion of our business, I probably would have just given up. Without the mission and personal meaning there’s no passion. You’re just selling products.
I'm not sure if that's really answering the question. But I think generally speaking, I'm excited to see everything that's out there right now. Wildwonder is not not particularly focused on Asian flavors – we’re not an Asian sauce company, or Asian flavored sparkling water or seltzer company (like a lot of my friends are doing!), but we are focused on what's meaningful to me. Our business is about heritage, and heritage means something different for everyone. But for us, we believe there is a universal language around heritage and nostalgia that we all miss.
Cut Fruit: Yeah, for sure! What did that journey of entrepreneurship look like for you, especially as an Asian American woman?
Rosa: I would say I'm very big on doing something that's meaningful to me. We all know Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Once we have achieved shelter, food, we start to look for something deeper. And it's really key to find something that we're passionate about, because entrepreneurship is just so challenging. It's not what we see in the media. We only obviously see the highs.We don't see the lows. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of lows, and it can go very low.
So I think making sure that there is meaning behind what we spend time on is most important because that's really going to drive us forward. It's a lifelong journey to find one's passion. And that's an ongoing process for everyone. But if it's something that we’re passionate about it creates fuel for us to go forward every day.
Cut Fruit: Finding meaning in the work is super important! Can you walk us through how to even get started in the food and beverage industry?
Rosa: Great question. I spent a lot of time Googling to be honest, at the beginning. In terms of starting, the best way is to reach out to people who are already doing it. In the early stages, if I had talked to someone who was a food entrepreneur or a beverage entrepreneur, it could have saved me many months of struggle. There are so many questions: should we go with a commercial kitchen or a manufacturing partner like a copacker? What are some challenges working with copackers? Is that option right for us? Those are questions people struggle with for years and advice around those experiences can be shared very easily.
So I would say talk to as many people as you can. Just get as much advice as possible. And I will say every business is different. Everyone who is giving advice is also projecting from their own experiences. So everyone will give advice, but don't take all the advice. Get a good balance.
And then the next step is to just launch something. Because a lot of people, especially women, are so focused on perfection. And I think as girls we are taught to be perfect and people pleasing. There's some sort of societal expectation that we just want to make everything perfect before we put it out in the world. Yeah -- don't do that. You know, I know no one, honestly I don't know anyone, who got their product right on try number one. Everything's iteration. The goal should be to iterate as fast as possible, and as many times as possible. And that way we can get to that more perfect product in a short period of time as possible. For the first launch, don't even have any high expectations. The key is to talk to as many customers as possible and get feedback. Just put something out there in the world. The learning is much more valuable than that first actual product.
For wildwonder, we've learned so much since we've launched and we've iterated the product so much. I think my friends even stopped tracking exactly what I'm doing, because I've iterated so many times. And right now what you're seeing on the website is, gosh, like 10 iterations after the first product we launched. Its name has changed. It was in a glass bottle, in a very different shape. Then we changed the bottle. Then we changed to cans, we changed the packaging many times. Everything's changed.
Cut Fruit: We definitely feel that, especially about just launching something! It does feel like there’s a very real desire for perfection, especially for Asian women. Do you ever feel like because you’re an Asian woman or a minority in a certain space, that there is more pressure to get things right on the first try?
Rosa: Yeah, I definitely think the bar is higher. And not necessarily because people have double standards. When we have that conversation about representation, I think it can feel like there's just not that many so-called "spots" for women and minorities, let alone together.
There's not that many people like us higher up. There's this idea of psychology around similarity attraction. People tend to like, hire and work with people who are similar to them. And so if every industry is dominated by the white male population then there are just fewer opportunities for women or for minorities. Representation really does matter in this case. There's this feeling that we have to make sure we don't make any mistakes since people aren't going to give us as many opportunities. So we do feel the pressure to outperform. It's unfortunate. I do think that we are making progress slowly. But [as Asian women] I think it's important to give ourselves more opportunities to put ourselves out there. Putting yourself out there is a good thing. If we fail once or twice, sure, people will ding us more for the mistakes we make. At the same time, if you put yourself out there more often, it means more No's, but it also means more Yes's!
Cut Fruit: Thanks for sharing that with us. And so we’re coming to the end of the interview, but we have to ask: what's your favorite fruit? And do you have any fruit based memories that you'd like to share?
Rosa: I like a lot of Asian fruits, but I love Asian pear -- I feel like it's just sweeter and more delicious. Growing up, my grandma would poach pears for me and she would make pear juice and poached pear for me whenever I was sick. It was very healing. I've always viewed certain fruits as healing and related to the philosophy of food as medicine. Wildwonder's first flavor was pear turmeric, so pear has played an important role in my childhood as well as my business. 🍐
]]>🎂 Sheng Kee Bakery & Cut Fruit Collective are celebrating 40+ years of Sheng Kee's flagship in San Francisco's Sunset neighborhood with this special tote designed by local artist Fanny Luor and screen printed by Ape Do Good Screen Printing!
🍰 Big fans of Sheng Kee's fruit cakes? Tote bags will be sold for $30 beginning Saturday, Feb 12 at the Irving Street location and at ShengKee.com. While supplies last.
Proceeds benefit Cut Fruit Collective, a Bay Area based community arts nonprofit dedicated to uplifting AAPI communities. Cut Fruit Collective is a fiscally sponsored by Possibility Labs 501c3.
Plus! Join us at the @shengkeebakery Irving St location for a small @cutfruitcollective pop up Sat, Feb 12 from 10 AM - 1 PM! Cut Fruit Collective will be selling select merch benefiting their programs.
Sat, Feb 12
10 AM - 1 PM
Sheng Kee Bakery
1941 Irving St, San Francisco
🍊 As we enter another Lunar New Year holiday season during this pandemic, a good amount of us are still likely separated from our loved ones, particularly those overseas. The latest book by Bay Area Taiwanese American children's book author Margaret Chiu Greanias, Amah Faraway, beautifully illustrates a relatable tale on maintaining family connections across distance, language, and cultures. We had the pleasure of interviewing Margaret and illustrator Tracy Subisak to hear more about their experiences growing up and staying rooted with their families.
Here's a little bit about the book:
MARGARET: My memories of my Amah (the Taiwanese word for grandmother) are some of the strongest from my childhood. She was the only grandparent I knew growing up and she embodied all of my grandparent hopes and dreams.
But our relationship wasn't easy. We saw each other infrequently since we lived so far apart--maybe once per year or two. My Taiwanese was about as good as her English which is to say not very. We were immersed in our own cultures and customs. All of this only created distance between us.
Even so, I adored my Amah. It just took a bit of time for me to feel familiar with her whenever she visited. I would go from hanging out nearby as I listened to my mom and her catch up to hanging onto her hand all the way to the departure gate at the airport, at some point having overcome my feeling of distance. I noticed my children go through something similar when they first visited Taipei. They went from wondering why we had to go to Taiwan in the first place to wondering when we could go back. Whenever I was looking for a new story to write, this idea of feeling distant which grew into feeling connected came up over and over again. But I never knew how to put it into a story until I wrote Amah Faraway.
MARGARET: For diaspora who are immersed in the culture of an adopted home, I think it's only natural that we might feel disconnected from our faraway family, the culture we've inherited, and our ancestral country. When I was growing up, the focus was fitting in and trying not to be othered. I went to Chinese school reluctantly, refused to try Taiwanese treats like pineapple cakes (now I know they are delicious!), and didn't feel like Lunar New Year was my holiday. Now though, after having my own children, I've realized the importance of staying connected to our roots--especially because as Asian Americans, our heritage is inseparable from how the world sees us.
I'm hoping Amah Faraway will resonate with those who have felt a disconnect from faraway family and/or their family heritage and that young readers will see how one moment of being open to something "new" led to hope, happiness, and connection for Kylie.
TRACY: One of the things I really connected with in this story was how quiet and intimidated Kylie is when she first visits her Amah. I envisioned her glued to her mom during the first half of the book, because that’s exactly how I was whenever my Waipo (what I called my Taiwanese grandma) visited our home. Waipo and I had a communication barrier and as a kiddo I had anxiety about speaking Mandarin poorly. But we were always able to find comfort in delicious food eating together!
This book is a great way for kids, and their parents, to identify the challenges in connecting and reconnecting with faraway family and culture—that disconnect can feel strange and intimidating at first, but there’s such comfort and love to be found after taking the time to identify those commonalities. It’s also a great conversation starter in finding ways to maintain that connection, especially in the midst of the travel challenges of the past couple of years.
MARGARET: My journey to reconnecting with my roots and heritage has been piecemeal, and I still have a lot of work to do. Since having children though, I have a new curiosity about our heritage. I want my children to feel pride in our roots, which is inseparable from our appearance.
On some level, Taiwanese culture has been engrained in me simply by the way my parents, who are both Taiwanese immigrants, raised me. But for me, many of the customs we followed growing up lacked context. For example, why the adults always fought for the chance to pay for our shared meal, what the purpose of red envelopes was, and why certain family members spoke Japanese. Lately, I've been listening to a podcast called Hearts in Taiwan hosted by Annie Wang and Angela Yu. Hearts in Taiwan is all about exploring the history of Taiwan and Taiwanese culture. While listening to the podcast, I've had many aha moments about my family's culture and history. I've also realized I never asked my parents why we did things the way we did, and my parents never explained our customs in detail.
Writing stories inspired by my childhood experiences has also helped me reconnect to my roots. It requires I clear the cobwebs from my brain and recall tangible details from childhood--like the feel of the paper in my Amah's bookstore in Taipei, the smell of burning joss sticks when my mom held a ghost meal, and the ooey gooey-ness of ba wan (Taiwanese meatballs). It makes me miss Taiwan and long to visit.
Recently, I've realized I never had a full picture of who my parents are. When I was growing up, they were focused on making sure I had enough to eat and that I was getting good grades. They rarely spoke about their own pasts. As they grow older, I'm feeling the urgency to learn all I can about them, their pasts, and our family history. Just a few months ago, my father shared with us a family tree that traced back ninety-five generations! My children were in awe and it was so wonderful to see their pride in our family.
TRACY: When I was a kid going to Chinese school on the weekends, I was the only half-Taiwanese kid in the entire school (minus my big brother). Even though I loved all my friends at Chinese school, and the cultural classes—ribbon dancing, gongfu, cooking, etc., my language skills were sub-par. I ended up dropping out in elementary school.
It wasn’t until I enrolled in the Chinese class my mom taught at my middle school that I started to really “get” the language. I know not a lot of AAPI have the opportunity to learn their mother tongue in an institutionalized way, and I’ll always cherish the enthusiasm my mom had for teaching Mandarin, the history of the language, and the many aspects of Chinese and Taiwanese cultures.
Language has been a key for me in connecting with my heritage, especially during my travels in my adulthood. I didn’t go to Taiwan until I was in college, based on a family superstition that stemmed from all my cousins and my brother ending up in the hospital in some random way during their first visit to Taiwan! I was lucky to spend time studying Mandarin and taking culinary classes at the Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University after I graduated from college. I loved living in Taiwan so much that I ended up finding my first job at Pegatron in Guangdu, Taiwan. I shared the low-key, yet hard-working lifestyle and goofy humor with the people there—I felt like I was home. Ever since I moved back to the States, I’ve sought out the local Taiwanese community to stay connected.
MARGARET: As Asians, whether we feel connected or not to our roots, other people will associate us with our heritage. It's in our best interest, especially in this time of AAPI hate, to be able to dispel untruths and pull together to support and find strength in each other.
On a more personal level, I believe it's important to stay connected to our heritage because it's something that grounds us in our identities. For diaspora, our families might be split between new and old countries. Staying connected to our culture means a better understanding of each other which leads to more empathy and ultimately brings both family in new and old countries closer together. Heritage also helps tie us together as a community and provides a sense of belonging which is so important for mental health and emotional well-being.
TRACY: Ever since my mom passed away five years ago, I’ve felt the connection to my heritage slipping through my fingers. My mom was such a huge part of my Taiwanese identity and connection to the language. We would talk a few times a week in Chinese, and she had the patience with me to advance and maintain my language skills.
My half-Taiwanese appearance is often described as “ambiguous,” and I have frequently felt a need to prove myself worthy of my heritage. Recently, I have had to really dig deep and advocate for myself and my identity and have tried my best to lean into my connections with my heritage by taking steps to be more involved in the Taiwanese community in the Pacific Northwest.
MARGARET: When I was little, I would check out a huge stack of books at the library and read them all in one sitting. But being an author didn't even register to me as something I could do. I was more focused on traditional careers like being an accountant or an architect. Only when I had to fulfill an elective requirement during my last year in college did I take a class in creative writing. I discovered that I loved it. Still, when I graduated, I stayed busy with other things—working in marketing and eventually earning my MBA. Once I started having children though, I rediscovered picture books. I think I loved reading them more than the kids loved listening to them. With nothing better to do while nursing my second child, I began thinking of story ideas. Eventually, I wrote my first story. Then, I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), discovered the kidlit community, found a critique group, took a bunch of classes and workshops, and began writing story after story.
TRACY: I studied industrial design at the University of Cincinnati, and have drawn characters and made up little worlds for as long as I can remember. I ended up working at Intel when I moved back to the States after working in Taiwan, and everyone I worked with asked me to draw out storyboards to help explain how their designs might be used. It was then that I finally took a children's book storytelling course from Victoria Jamieson (yes, Roller Girl, Victoria Jamieson) at PNCA. And it was Vicki who told me that this career was a viable option for me. The seed was planted, and I worked on my children’s book illustration portfolio every night after work until I had some signs telling me it was time to go for it full-time! I was lucky to meet a wonderful group of friends at a chapter of SCBWI at the start of my journey and we have all supported each other as we navigate the industry and improve our craft.
TRACY: Working on Amah Faraway may have been the first time where I’ve felt truly confident in my painting and inking style. When I compare my collective few months of studying Chinese calligraphy and painting to my mom’s and her family’s years of daily calligraphy practice… does it even compare? Well, my eye and appreciation is still there at least.
My painting style is a bit of a fusion of all the different styles of painting that I’ve ever learned— from utilizing the vast breadth of paint strokes that can be achieved with a Chinese brush to finding a balance between shape and line when it comes to pulling the focus of the eye.
I wanted to capture the movement and bustle of the night market scenes, the pause of overwhelm from Kylie when she’s at her first big banquet, the moment when she connects with her Amah at the hot springs. It helps that I connect so thoroughly with this story emotionally and spatially— with a deep love for the matriarchs in my life, but also I freaking love Taiwan and every detail I’ve put in there has had at least a moment of curiosity from me in Taiwan at some point of my life.
MARGARET: I love sweet, juicy white peaches and crisp, delicately sweet Asian pears.
After dinner, we'd rarely get desserts like ice cream or cake. Instead, my mom would cut fruit. So I always associated fruit with dessert. But that was okay because I loved and still love fruit today (and it's guilt free too!).
TRACY: So, so many.
An obvious fruit favorite is the mango. Specifically, a mango grown in Taiwan that is ripe every June for a two-week period. I wish I could tell you the name of it, but all I know is that my late-mom, Aunt, and Uncles are all obsessed. It’s small, easy to peel, and has a small seed, which equals a high fruit meat-to-seed ratio. The goal during this mango’s season is to eat as many as possible, and cherish each juicy bite.
One June, I was in Taipei for a business trip, and one of my uncles happened to be in town too. While I waited at a very specific bench for him to pick me up to go see Waipo in Sanzhi, he zoomed past me and slammed on the breaks at the next bench 20 feet further. Of course, this was very inconvenient for him, and after waiting for me to saunter to his car, we were off!
It’s important to bring at least three bags of fruit to Waipo and her caretaker, so we stopped by the fruit stand in Danshui on the way. We got at least two bags full of those special mangoes among other bags of fruit and vegetables.
When we got there, Waipo was finishing up her nap, so we waited in the hallway listening to the cicadas outside. Uncle pulled out a bag of mangoes and handed me one. I took it to my mouth and pulled the skin off gently with my teeth, then took my first bite—juicy pulp was dripping everywhere. I looked up to grab a napkin and saw that Uncle had finished FIVE mangoes within my first bite. “快點! (Hurry up!)” he said, as he wrapped up the bag of mangoes and got up to go inside. A tiny tear fell inside my soul as I had to rush to finish off my favorite fruit!
My Uncle’s speed of mango eating and that moment are forever intertwined with those mangoes!
Be sure to find a copy of Amah Faraway at your local bookstore or order online through this link.
]]>Collaborate with AAPI creatives and communities to inspire active care and deep connections to AAPI neighborhoods
CAPACITY BUILDINGProvide creative skills and resources to develop and strengthen AAPI small businesses, organizations, and neighborhoods.
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We also evolved from Save Our Chinatowns grassroots relief to Cut Fruit Collective, fiscally sponsored project of Possibility Labs 501c3!
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Colonialism (noun): The subjugation of the original inhabitants of an area through past and current physical and political occupation. This often includes resource extraction and economic exploitation.
Settler Colonialism (noun): When the Indigenous peoples of a land are further displaced by settlers who permanently move to this land.
Indigenous (adjective): Native; The original inhabitants of a particular region. Oftentimes Indigenous identity is separate from the State.
Many Asian Americans understand colonization as a part of their family history. These experiences of intergenerational trauma continue today. Examples of colonization in Asia include:
For many Asian Americans, this history of colonization is a source of trauma and pain. In fact, many Asian Americans have migrated to the United States because of destabilization due to said colonization.
Settler colonialism is a common type of oppression that happens around the world. Within Asia, just a few examples include:
Settler colonialism in the land we now call the United States began hundreds of years ago and continues today. As non-Indigenous people living in the Americas, Asian Americans also take part in settler colonialism (with the exception of multiracial Asian Americans with Indigenous roots here).
Note: Sometimes nations and states will justify their occupation of Indigenous lands as part of an effort to “civilize”, develop, or otherwise improve a region. Regardless of any helpful intentions, settling a region with non-Indigenous people (without their consent), reducing Indigenous people’s political power, and seeking to change or dilute the cultural/ethnic makeup of a region is settler colonialism.
To be an Indigenous person is to be native to the land; it is to have an ancestral connection to the land; to care for the land and to have the land care for you. Indigenous peoples were self-sustaining, had complex societies, and led fruitful, vibrant lives pre-colonization. Contrary to popular belief, many Indigenous people are worse off due to colonialism. Today, Indigenous people in the U.S. have limited access to their ancestral lands, suffer financially (1) (Indigenous people have over 3 times the poverty rate of White Americans), have an overall lower life expectancy relative to all other races in the US (2), and continue to be exploited by the United States government.
Contemporary examples of continued colonization and exploitation of Indigenous lands and people include the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, both of which are protested by Indigenous people in those areas.
As someone who embodies both settler colonial and Indigenous history in my blood, I ask that my fellow Asian American peers reflect upon how we continue to perpetuate and benefit from this ongoing colonization of Indigenous lands and people.
The most evident example of how we benefit from settler colonialism is the land we live on. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which allowed the federal government to “trade” land in the west for Native American ancestral homelands in the eastern United States. However, despite creating hundreds of treaties with various Native American tribes, the U.S. government ultimately stole Native land, oftentimes by violent means. Today, there are only 56 million acres of land reserved for Native American tribes and individuals, roughly only 2% of their original ancestral lands. In Hawai’i, only 200,000 acres of land, or 0.04% of Hawaiian lands (3), are reserved for Hawaiian Home Lands, a state program where land is held in trust for Native Hawaiians. Additionally, Native Hawaiians are further restricted from accessing this land due to its extremely long waitlist and its strict 50% blood quantum requirement. The land that we live on was forcefully taken from Indigenous people, and our communities here benefit from their continued displacement. In many places in the U.S., Asian American communities are growing and becoming wealthier, while Indigenous and Pacific Islander communities have yet to see similar gains. For example, Hawai’i’s population of Asian Americans is upwards of 40% while the population of Native Hawaiians is less than 10% (4). Relative to Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians experience more than triple the rates of poverty (5) and homelessness (6).
In order for non-Indigenous people to live in America and have access to its resources and land, Indigenous people have been subjected to genocide, restricted to small portions of land, and forced to assimilate to the culture of their colonizers. As Asian Americans live here, build wealth, and amass political power, we still perpetuate the ongoing marginalization and exploitation of Indigenous communities, land and culture by occupying land that was seized from the original inhabitants through unjust means. Harming Indigenous people was not our intent, nor that of our ancestors, yet by immigrating and settling here, we still benefit from settler colonialism. Recognizing the shared history of colonization in our respective ancestral lands and as current settlers on this land, we Asian Americans have a responsibility to take action in solidarity.
by Lauren Markle
PRE-COLONIAL POPULATION: The total Indigenous population of the pre-colonial Americas was at least 60 million people. 90% of the Native population died during a roughly 100 year span (7) (1492-1600) due to colonial violence and the (sometimes intentional) introduction of European diseases. In North America, the pre-colonial Indigenous population was estimated to be at least 18 million people. The Native American population was as low as 238,000 people in the late 19th century due to ongoing colonial wars, disease and forced relocations (such as the Trail of Tears). Indigenous people have faced this settler-colonial nightmare with remarkable resiliency.
CULTURAL GENOCIDE: George Washington and subsequent U.S. leaders believed it was necessary to “civilize” Native Americans in order to reduce their political power. Under the Civilization Fund Act in 1819, the government “educated”hundreds of thousands of Native American children in boarding schools. Children were separated from their families, forbidden to speak their native language and subjected to abuse and inhumane living conditions. Many died due to malnourishment, disease and suicide. Investigations surrounding these schools have only just started. In terms of cultural loss, approximately 300-500 (8) Indigenous languages were spoken in the U.S. prior to colonization. Only 167 remain today, with the majority considered moribund or nearly extinct. It is estimated that only 20 of these languages will survive to 2050.
Sources
The estimated time commitment varies for roles and by project. We are not currently hiring for full-time work. We believe in compensating creatives and are able to offer a small stipend. If you prefer to offer services on a volunteer basis, we can accommodate as well.
Deadline to apply for this round is Wednesday, November 24, 2021. For both content creators and volunteers, preferred commitment is December 2021 - May 2022.
Minimum qualifications for all roles:
· Living in the U.S., SF Bay Area preferred
· Above the age of 18
· Minimum 3 month time commitment, at least 6 months preferred
Examples of the type of writing we're hiring for: here, here and here. Also check out our blog.
Responsibilities
Qualifications
Bonus
How to Apply
Compensation: $50 per post/piece for our social media. Compensation varies for larger projects, and starts at $0.25/word for longer works.
Estimated time commitment: up to 10 hours a month
Examples of the type of graphics work we're hiring for: Instagram graphics, vector graphics for merch, and zine design. We're looking to expand though and are open to ideas!
Responsibilities
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How to Apply
Compensation: Varies by project, but compensation for creating graphics for one standard Instagram post is $50 per post
Estimated time commitment: Varies by project
Examples of the type of photo/video work we're hiring for: event coverage, small business highlights, product photography, street/culture/food photography and videography. We're looking to expand though and are open to ideas!
Qualifications
How to Apply
Compensation: Varies by project, but compensation for creating content for one Tiktok/Reel is $50 per post
Estimated time commitment: Varies by project
]]>Also check out her Honeyed Pistachio Mooncakes recipe recently published in the New York Times.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Cut Fruit Collective: Can you tell us your inspiration for writing the book and what led you to this particular topic on Chinese pastries and baked goods?
Kristina: Sure! So I always consider myself like a home cook and home baker like I'm a self taught like everything. I did grow up in a restaurant family. My grandpa, when he moved from Hong Kong to the United States, started working in kitchens and owned his own restaurant. So I've always just been very much immersed in the food world, cooking, and cooking for others.
As I started on this journey of working in food full time, it's always hard to describe my job working in food media, or as a recipe developer. I think you're always trying to find your own voice—I hate the word niche—but more like what you're passionate about. A few years ago, I started recreating my own versions of Chinese bakery style buns and things like that, because that's just something I would never see.
I feel like the food media landscape is very inundated with a million chocolate chip cookie recipes and Western or American style baking, which makes sense. I live in America, but so much of my upbringing in my world growing up was going to Chinese bakeries as a kid.
Buns were my standard type of desserts I would get at dim sum or in the mornings. So I started recreating those, and I felt like I got a really surprisingly strong reaction from people when I shared it. People were really excited by the prospect of baking these things yourself.
I think in a lot of Asian cultures—I can only kind of speak to my own, which is Cantonese or Chinese style—baking at home is not a super strong tradition, in a sense. There's a very strong tradition of savory cooking—like making big feasts. But dessert is always cut fruit. That's the love language, you know? You just serve a bowl of oranges or mangoes, and things like that. But baking something is not super common. I kind of wanted to not change that, but demystify a lot of these wonderful Chinese pastries and baked goods that you can only get at bakeries and share with other people.
It's really not that hard to make them yourself, and there's actually a lot of crossover. There's really no other comparable book that extensively covers Chinese baking at all. That's where a lot of the confusion and demystifying comes in. You need to learn about and realize that so much of the stuff is just not that different from what we understand as Western baking.
So the short answer is I saw a void there, and I felt like I wanted to fill it and share with the world this really wonderful part of my culture.
Cut Fruit Collective: And we're so glad that you're doing it! Personally, we love Asian pastries, too. And we've attempted to make a few but sometimes we just feel intimidated by it for some reason.
Kristina: I think baking in general is a little intimidating if you don't have the right recipe or the right guiding voice to carry you through it. So the way I wrote my book, I wanted to feel like I'm your friend that's in the kitchen with you just reassuring you like, “It's okay!”
If something weird happens, you can work through it. But also, I feel like when I was doing a lot of research for the different recipes, a lot of the recipes online are untrustworthy. There's not a lot of them that are vetted.
Cut Fruit Collective: You mentioned that a lot of Asian people didn't grow up baking. So for you having a family restaurant background, do you think there was an aspect of some familiarity with baking in the household or was that also very new for you and your family?
Kristina: I think there were definitely a lot of crossover aspects, and as I was writing the book and writing my notes and stories, I started to realize that, whoa! Like we actually did kind of do a lot of this stuff growing up. There's actually a few recipes of my grandma's that I added in there because it just expanded my definition of what baking is. And I kind of explore that Chinese baking isn't everything that just goes into an oven. There's steamed sponge cakes and things like that. My grandma makes us Prosperity Cake for Chinese New Year every year. [After steaming them] they blossom into flowery tops. You'll see those at bakeries. And so I was like, “Oh, I actually did do this growing up!” It's not so foreign to me.
Maybe the disconnect would be at home, my grandparents would never measure anything. When I was trying to transcribe some of their recipes, they have like one specific coffee mug that they use for everything. My grandma advised me to maybe invest in some measuring cups, when you develop this recipe. I'm like, “Yes, grandma, I will do that! Really good idea!” So I think the technical aspects were not really the same, but there were a lot of traditions. The idea of doing a laborious task definitely helped me as I developed these recipes. It wasn't completely new to me.
Cut Fruit Collective: We've always been really impressed with how you incorporate Asian culture into your recipes. Some recipes feel more traditional, like a grandmother's recipe, and some are more modern and feel more influenced by Asian culture. Do you think you could tell us more about that journey for you personally on whether that was something you were always doing? Or is it something that you strayed away from and had to come back to?
Kristina: I think over the years, as I've been honing in on my culinary voice and my vision for my recipes, and I've found myself most comfortable in this hybrid of infusing flavors and techniques that I learned from my family [and heritage], but also really recognizing the fact that I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. I wasn't born and raised in Hong Kong like my dad. I have learned to embrace both sides of that.
That wasn't always the easiest for me. For most of my life I grew up in Ohio, and my grandparents lived in Chinatown. I felt like when I went to my grandparents house or did family activities, I was very much immersed in Chinese Cantonese culture. But then when I went back to the suburbs where I grew up, it was incredibly hard to kind of feel comfortable in that.
I, as a lot of kids did, just tried my best to assimilate. So I had this very strange dichotomy of trying to separate those two. That was a struggle I had to kind of balance for a lot of my life.
When I moved to San Francisco eight years ago, and I lived in the Inner Richmond, that was the first time I lived somewhere where a lot of the people looked like me. And I heard other Asian languages, like, just casually being spoken on the street. And that was very life changing for me. I had never experienced that before. Other than traveling to Hong Kong. Even there, that doesn't even feel like the same.I felt like, living in Inner Richmond, allowed me to feel comfortable living both sides of how I was brought up.
From there, that's actually where I started Eat Cho Food, and playing around with these recipes. Sometimes I would recreate something that's really traditional that I felt like my grandparents and my parents would make, but then also incorporate my own California slash Midwestern influences. It just wasn't a super conscious decision and just kind of happened—just letting myself be myself in my food.
When I develop recipes, my goal is not to recreate something that's been done a million times over. I keep going back to chocolate chip cookies, but like I don't have a desire to make another version. That's totally fine for other people. Their goal is to make something better, but I'd rather be reinventing or creating something that's new or reinterpreted.
Cut Fruit Collective: That’s so wonderful and insightful. When did you start your blog exactly?
Kristina: I think around 2017. I used to be an architect slash interior designer. And I started my blog because I was very unhappy in my job and did not feel creatively fulfilled. And so in my spare time, I started working on my blog.
Cut Fruit Collective: So I think that we're finally getting to a point where we kind of see a difference between Asian food versus Asian American food being discussed more openly. I know you definitely mentioned that you do a hybrid of the both, but what do you feel the differences are and what does that mean to you?
Kristina: Yeah, I feel like there's definitely more discourse about that. Now, and I feel like for a long time, Asian American food was discredited for a while for being inauthentic. “Authentic” is a super hard word to claim on anything! I feel like Asian American food is just its own thing that just happens everywhere. Wherever you go, you learn to adapt. And I think that's what Asian American food is. It's like coming to America, you learn to adapt with the grocery stores and resources that we have here. And I think it's human nature for everyone to adapt to wherever they are. Even my own version of Asian American food might not be the same as what other people consider Asian American food, which might be more like Chinese takeout food.
And other people’s perception of Chinese/Chinese-American food might be different from what the Chinese food that my mom would make growing up. [Her food] was also a hybrid of things because there wasn't great access to Chinese grocery stores and things like that. Even living out here [in the Bay Area], I feel like there's an interesting kind of California-style of Asian American food that's different from how my family would eat in Ohio or on the East Coast. So I think exploring what everyone's definition of Asian American food is—it's just really fascinating.
Cut Fruit Collective: What would you say off the top of your head are some of the differences between Ohio-Asian-American food and Californian-Asian-American food?
Kristina: It might be the use of vegetables or more vegetables? I would think in California, we have the best produce. So there's a lot of really interesting vegetables and also access to the seafood seasons here. I think that's what makes California and our Bay Area Chinese American foods different from the Ohio stuff. I think though, the stuff that I grew up on in Ohio, is probably more of like the platonic idea of Chinese takeout food. There's definitely a few restaurants that kind of took that a little further. But yeah, I think Ohio is more about working with what you can get access to.
Cut Fruit Collective: Going back to the Mid Autumn Festival—do you have any memories of Mid Autumn Festival growing up and memories around moon cakes?
Kristina: Yeah, totally! Every Mid Autumn Festival, I went to the Chinese market with my mom or my grandma trying to hunt down different types of mooncake tins. Because in Cleveland, there was not—up until a few years ago—like an actual Chinese bakery there. We would only get mooncakes from those tins that get imported from Hong Kong. And so we would hunt down and try to find the best tin that we could. That was always kind of fun to see what different flavors they had. Then we would always go to my grandparents house for dinner and then make a big feast.
For some reason I can't remember if there were any specific dishes that we ate during the Mid Autumn Festival, but the only thing I remember is that at the end there was always a bowl of steamed baby taro. We would peel them and then go out into my grandma's garden and eat them while staring at the moon. My grandma grew up in the countryside where taro symbolizes the moon and it's just a lucky thing to eat while also staring at the moon. [It also gives you] good luck and prosperity for your next season's harvest. That's always stuck in my mind too.
Cut Fruit Collective: Do you know the region your grandmother grew up in?
Kristina: Yeah, she grew up in the Toisan area. All four of my grandparents are from there.
Cut Fruit Collective: Can you tell us more about how you got interested in making mooncakes?
Kristina: Going back to my self-taught baker journey, I started researching recipes when I was in high school because I didn't know how to make all these things that I loved like cheese cakes and cookies and things like that. I've always been drawn to learning a process. Making things like puff pastry and croissants and stuff like that, I love those kind of methodical, step by step things. With mooncakes I started making them a few years ago and always with the notion that people will think they're super difficult to make. Even when I asked my grandma if she's ever made them before she just laughed in my face. She was like, “Only a master could make those!”
But when I started making them there's so many varieties of mooncakes that not all of them are crazy days long or month long processes. There’s the traditional one with a salted egg yolk and a white lotus or red bean paste. If you did it the old fashioned way, you would cure your egg yolks for 30 days and make your own bean paste. I do have scratch made versions of those in my book, but they've also been condensed down to be a little bit more manageable for the everyday home baker.
The process of making noon cakes was really intriguing for me because I think it made me understand that it could be really hard but you can also make it in a way that it's not that difficult for you. Like, if you ever tried making a pie or a layer cake before, these are easier! Learning the process is something that just intrigued me, and now I really love making them. It's always really satisfying to pop them out of the mold.
Cut Fruit Collective: Nice! So through this process, what have you learned about the history, culture, and regional differences of mooncakes?
Kristina: That there are just so many! While writing this, I learned a lot about Chinese baking in the terms of the context that I know it and I fully recognize that my version is closest to the Cantonese style, and also Taiwanese style baked goods. But there's so much more. The whole country of China is huge! There's so much more history that it’d be so exciting for someone else who maybe is more into that context of northern Chinese baking (like flat breads) could investigate and write their own book about that.
So I learned a lot about my world, but also expanded my definition of what Chinese food can be and especially with mooncakes, every region has their own style of mooncake, some of them are not sweet! I have grown up eating the Cantonese style ones. And so those are primarily sweet—sometimes there might be preserved ham or something like that, but they are primarily a dessert. Other mooncakes have pork belly in it or turnips and potatoes and are more savory with a flaky pastry. So there's just so much more to learn about it. If I had an entire book dedicated to mooncakes I think that would be really interesting but [I’ve got] a portion of my book dedicated to them.
Cut Fruit Collective: Could you sum up what are the key kinds of techniques, ingredients or things to keep in mind when making mooncakes?
Kristina: So mooncakes typically are two parts. It's crust and filling inside. Those are the basic components. I don't think I've even encountered a mooncake, that's entirely one material or one ingredient that's stamped in something unless it's a cookie. But those are typically the two things and the crust can be so different. You can have a flour base crust that feels almost like a fig newton that's kind of soft and kind of crumbly, like Cantonese style, or you can make a flaky pastry. But then there's also another style that's made with glutinous rice flour or even mochi flour for snowskin mooncakes. And so there's a lot of creativity and routes you can go with your type of crust.
I would even explore that even further, expand on that maybe using different types of flour for your crust. But then the filling is where you can get even more creative. I just bought a box of mooncakes, my first box of the season from Costco, and they had black tea and pomelo flavor in there. So it's really interesting how you can infuse different flavors in your filling. A lot of times the fillings are, I would say, calorie dense. They're really dense, typically like red bean paste, white lotus paste, or like a bunch of nuts that are kind of ground up.
Typically, you want your filling to be sturdy enough to hold up against your stamp. So that's something you have to think about with your structure. But that's why nuts and things like that are really great because you can kind of compact them into like a little ball, wrap them up.
Cut Fruit Collective: Can you talk a little bit more about the molds and stamps?
Kristina: So I have two kinds of molds. I have the plastic plunger style mold, which is a little bit more modern. And then I also have the wooden ones that and actually a lot of different cultures have this kind of the same wooden stamp. Like ma'amoul which is a Middle Eastern cookie looks exactly the same with different patterns. So it's really interesting, but the wooden paddle one is definitely harder to use. It takes a lot of practice to be able to pack it in well enough and then you kind of whack it to get the new kick to fall out but sometimes they stick.
In my book, I clearly say that you should just use the plastic. If you have an heirloom wooden paddle mooncake mold, by all means use it and get comfortable with it. But my goal as a recipe developer is to make sure that people don't feel frustrated while they're making something because I feel that when frustration builds, you don't want to make something again. So if you're going to start, I highly recommend the plastic plunger style one. I have one plunger mold that has like eight different patterns in it, which is really great because you can swap it out and make different designs.
A lot of times the designs and the plastic ones are a little bit more intricate. And I don't know, I think mooncakes are just really beautiful. So that's like a benefit of using the more modern style mold. You can also make mooncakes without a mold to which I also have an option in my book. You can kind of freestyle it and make them look like little animals, which some bakeries will do.
Just in case there are people out there that can't convince themselves to buy a moon cake mold.
Cut Fruit Collective: Do you have any of your favorite Asian grocery stores that you'd like to hit up before the Mid Autumn Festival to start that mooncake process?
Kristina: Totally! So when I lived in the Inner Richmond [neighborhood of San Francisco], I would pretty much always go to New May Wah, which is one of the bigger grocery grocery stores there. I love going there. I went there like every other day, and the cashiers know me. Out here in the East Bay, I go to 99 Ranch. I was there a few weeks ago. They already started their mooncake display. So there's a lot there.
In terms of bakeries: Eastern Bakery, in Chinatown San Francisco is excellent. They're the oldest, I think, Chinese bakery in San Francisco. And they make really good mooncakes all year long—always scratch made.
Cut Fruit Collective: Thanks for those recommendations! All right. Last question. What's your favorite fruit, and any fruit memories or stories that you'd like to share?
Kristina: Oh, my gosh, my favorite, I feel like I would have to immediately go to mango! I just love a ripe mango. I have a preference towards the champagne mangoes or the Filipino mangoes. I think they're less fibrous.
And one memory that I have… Overall, cut fruit, obviously, is something that my family would always do. My mom still cuts an apple for my dad every single night. Like she wants to do it, you know? And he wants an apple. They'll do it for us when we're home too.
I think about it often when I write about mango or eat a mango—a few years ago, I went back to Hong Kong—just me. I just went to Hong Kong by myself to visit my dad's side of the family. And I was staying with my grandma there. My Cantonese is not very good. When I'm in Ohio, I can understand Cantonese and my dad and I have bilingual conversations. But in Hong Kong it’s just very different. I have a hard time keeping up.
But I was staying with my grandma, and every night she would turn on this one channel that was only playing Harry Potter for some reason. Every night she would turn on TV and there's Harry Potter playing, and she played it for me because it's the only thing that was in English. And then she would peel a mango for me. And the way that she peels mango—I've never seen anyone else peel it like that before—she peels it like a banana! She held it and then peeled the skin off like a banana for me and would just hand it to me to eat. I'm just like “Do I just bite this with my mouth?” She ate it that way, and so for a few days, every night we would end the night watching Harry Potter and eating a mango like a banana.
It’s a very funny random memory with fruit that I have but the feeling is always the same. Getting a piece of fruit is “I love you,” you know? 🥭
]]>Join Cut Fruit Collective and Good Good Eatz for a socially distanced outdoor paint party in Old Oakland on 9/14! Our lanterns will join hundreds of lanterns painted by OUSD students to decorate Little Saigon (Eastlake) businesses and Clinton Park during the Mid Autumn Festival celebrations on Saturday, September 19.
Limited spots available. Paint, brushes, and lanterns will be provided plus banh mi and beers! Full COVID vaccination proof required. 21+ only.
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