Photographed by Breanne Johnston, Standwood, WA
Home is a place of warm rice pudding, snuggled in the comfort of full acceptance of who I am and who I am going to be. It is a place of growth and expansion, knowing that new ideas are always melding with old ones. It is a place of activism, preparing for the next day of encouraging and demanding the world to be a more equitable place. It is a place of tears and laughter; the process of life.
Asian Pacific Islander American popular culture is a conversation that is ever growing and hasn’t had a place to fully bloom. The language for discussing identity, experience, and place in the world is widely still unformed as different ethnic groups have completely different paths to and within the United States. Therefore, the conversation of place is fragmented and pieced together.
I want to focus on food because of the way it brings people together and reveals the values and traditions of communities.