MAI
COOKED & RAW May 28, 2018 Fresno, California Vol. 5 – This zine is about the food you love, the food that reminds you of a memory, and the food that defines your experience and identities.
TABLE OF CONTENT Page 2 Page 3 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 9
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Dedication Breakfast Bao Thao When East Met West Henry Nguyen Ode to Papaya Salad Mai Yer Xiong Fish, Feasts, and Family Douachee Vang Mom’s “Do what you can with what you have” Soup Xee Reiter My Thoughts and Opinions of Southeast Asian Foods Tommy Shee Pho See Xiong Corner Store Groceries Pachia Lucy Vang Contributors About & Acknowlegement
DEDICATIONS Thank you, mom, for always reminding to reduce the amount of chilly peppers in my diet. See Xiong
Dedicated to those who cook from their hearts. Pachia Lucy Vang
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Breakfast Bao Thao Picture taken April 26, 2018
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Hi! My name is Bao Thao. I am originally from Madison, WI and am a graduate student in the Refugee and Forced Migration Studies program at DePaul University. On this day, I had the day off from work and did not have class until the evening, so I was able to go for my usual morning run. This is what I ate for breakfast afterwards. I had yogurt with one sliced banana, vanilla almonds and chia seeds; three hard-boiled eggs; and one avocado. As a graduate student and working full-time, it is important for me to stay healthy physically and mentally. To me, breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it provides me the energy I need to get things done. Breakfast is also a time of setting a healthy intention for the day ahead. If I start the day with a nutritious breakfast, I know that I am giving myself a good chance to pick healthier food choices for the rest of the day (and ultimately, for the rest of the week!). Health eating is a virtue and making it a habit is particularly important to me as it relates to stress and having poor health affects many areas of our lives such as it can lead to ill-health in the long-term.
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WHEN EAST MET WEST Henry Nguyen A food fight in the cafeteria As I opened my lunchbox, the first shot fired But this was not Syria Something innate had transpired An ancient aroma wafted through the air As the bullet hit the boy next to me It was like smoke, but with an Asian flair My roots were exposed for all to see Inside the box was an arsenal of food Of fried fish, rice, and picked vegetables Battling it out against the cuisine of another latitude Of PBJs, pizza, and Lunchables A struggle between two nations In the suburbs of San Jose But I didn’t want to have two relations I chose one to betray I shut the lid tight To temporarily stall the war Maybe one day the rivals will unite An American I am, but Asian I tried to ignore
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Ode to Papaya Salad Mai Yer Xiong
This is an ode to papaya salad by a Hmong-American girl who loves the spicy, sour, garlic, and padek combination. When asked to name her favorite food, she almost always says papaya salad. Depending on who’s asking though, she may hesitate before answering. She sometimes says fried chicken instead. It’s sometimes easier to not have to explain. But this is her public declaration of love. Papaya salad, you are an acquired taste, but she has loved you since the very first bite. Even when her father refused to let her eat with the family at the dinner table because of your stench, she loved you. Especially when she is PMS-ing, she loves you. There is nothing better than your perfect blend of spicy & sour on scorching summer days. She would pick you over pizza and pasta, a thousand times over. You can be found throughout Southeast Asia, but she thinks there is no better version of you than at Coco’s Island, her favorite booth at the Saint Paul Hmong Town Market. While living in Boston and Panama, outside of the tight-knit Hmong enclave in MN, the one thing she missed most was you. You remind her of her mom’s love. You taste like home to her. Her love for you keeps her grounded. It marks her as Hmong. 6
Fish, Feasts, and Family Douachee Vang 7
Fish feasts remind me of my childhood. A childhood of purity, laughter, and family gatherings. It brings me nostalgia, thinking about the hot summer Saturdays when my siblings, cousins, and I would be swimming in the lake at Millerton while the men fished, and the women relaxed or cooked. Back in the day, my dad and his two brothers would catch so much fish that the next day we would have a fish feast at my parents’ house. The laughter of three families intertwined with the smell of fish guts in a small home was the definition of comfort. Even knowing that my dad’s older brother lived next door and their youngest brother lived across the street, we could never get enough of one another and our fishy gatherings.
Today, fishing has become a staple identity for our family, even if we all live in different homes now. As we’ve journeyed away from our comfort zone of Millerton lake to explore oceans and beaches and rivers, our parents’ cooking techniques have simultaneously broadened. However, there will always be a few dishes that remain original and homely: carp laab and stir-fry carp eggs. These two dishes will always bring me back to “the good ol’ days” of when we were all young and carefree. Even though it’s challenging to all come together these days, when my own family makes these dishes for ourselves I reminisce about those joyful pastimes. Now, our families have our third generation of Hmong Americans to share our pastime with and to create fish feast memories. 8
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Mom’s “Do what you can with what you have” Soup Xee Reiter
As a young kid, I didn’t know that we were poor. I didn’t know that poverty existed because despite three generations living under one roof, my parents always made sure that we were never hungry. My mom made soup quite often in order to make a little protein go a long way. To this day, I still make the same soup for my family. She thinly sliced some pork, sautéed it in a little oil then covered it with just the right ratio of water to meat. A simple sprinkle of salt, sometimes a dash of soy sauce and then the most important: lemongrass, green onions and cilantro. We would enjoy it with a side of steamed rice.
I remember when my mom would bring home boxes of food from the food shelf. Food we were not familiar with. She would take the packets out of the boxes of mac n cheese and throw them away and added just the macaroni to the soup. Genius! After all these years, who knew that such a humble soup would still bring me feelings of adulation and comfort? I hope that my girls will make it for their kids too and for many generations to come.
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My Thoughts and Opinions of Southeast Asian Foods Tommy Shee Although I eat and enjoy many different foods, I want to write about how exactly I feel about Southeast Asian food, since I often talk about how much I like certain foods originating from Southeast Asia but have yet to write about why or how I have come to like Southeast Asian food, or really any foods that I have come to like, for that manner. I know when I write “Southeast Asia,” that term in itself encompasses of several different countries, but I will concentrate on the countries of: Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand since I have only tasted food from these countries thus far, so it is only far I talk about what I have eaten versus what I have yet to eat. Before elaborating any further, let me take some time to introduce myself. I am three-quarters Chinese and one-quarter Lao and self-identify as Laotian Chinese American. I was born and raised near St. Louis, MO and have stayed there for most of my life, until I started college and went to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. With that aside, I grew up eating Chinese food, and of course “American food,” for the most part and Lao food was something I only saw on occasions, where I would visit my paternal grandmother’s house or on holidays, so eating and seeing Lao food was a rarity for me, if I even gravitated towards it when I was younger. As for Chinese food, surprisingly enough, both sides of my family emphasized the Chinese part of our identity over the Lao part, which included celebrating Chinese holidays over Lao holidays and teaching some of my generation to speak Mandarin Chinese over Lao, eating Chinese food over Lao food was no exception, although speaking English and eating “American food” almost always took precedent over any Chinese emphasis since I believe my family emphasized being American first and foremost over being aware of our cultural background. I have no idea if anyone would be able to relate to this, but whenever I visited my paternal grandmother’s house on Sundays as an elementary school kid and it was time for dinner, the adults almost always ordered pizza or fried chicken for us, despite there being Lao food that was readily available for us to eat. Now, being the gluttonous kid that I was, I really did not care what I ate, as long as I was full. I guess I would have chosen American food 11
over Lao food for certain since I think I thought that American food looked more appealing to eat and smelled more normal than the “salad” my paternal grandmother would make every time we went to her house, although it would not be until recently that I figured out that that “smell” was none other than padek or fish oil sauce and the “salad” was tum mak hoong or papaya salad.
My mom and dad got divorced when I was starting middle school, so I had spent many years of my life, from sixth grade until my freshman year of college, just not having any exposure to Lao food, although I did have some light doses of Thai and Vietnamese food. Cambodian food and Hmong food would still have to wait until about last summer. It was due to that divorce that I not only had no exposure to Lao food, but I felt ashamed about everything that came to being Lao and denied that I was even part Lao for all those years of my life, with my attitudes of being Southeast Asian American starting to change by the time I was a junior in high school and being completely open to learning and embracing my identity just before the start of college, although this is a story for another day. Anyways, my paternal grandmother passed away during my first semester of freshman year of college and her death, as sad as it was, sparked me to want to further learn more about being Lao, on top of other events and moments that had led to this resolution. Although me eating Lao food is still something of a rarity, as I only eat it during some holiday festival or whenever I get a chance to visit my Minnesotan, Wisconsin, or Northern Illinois friends, I have learned to come to accept Lao food more as a sign of pride and the unique nature of Lao food. Although I am mostly not a person who prefers finger food, I do make exceptions for Lao food. Although I had no real idea what Lao foods I like eating the most, I figured out real recently that I love larb and tum mak hoong and also Lao jerky, so I suppose I would be able to eat a balanced Lao meal if I chose to do so. Although padek and tum mak hoong still make me knock out at times, I have learned to embrace eating and smelling both, which I consider to be very much an acquired taste. However, there are still some things in Lao food that I would never, in my life, touch, such as pork blood in khao piak sen. Gosh, just thinking about that makes me shutter. As for Vietnamese food, college was also the time that I had more interactions with Vietnamese Americans and more interactions with Vietnamese food. Before coming to college, I was absolutely haunted by phở as I was once scarred by the smell of phở from a casino that was serving it, which I have later deemed as “inauthentic phở.” Well, it was not until college 12
that I realized how much I like bánh mì. I remember the first time eating bánh mì that was made by Vietnamese people and really loving everything that was in the sandwich, from the bread to the meat and all the way to the vegetables that were in the sandwich. As for phở, I tend to not use a spoon to eat it, use a crap-ton of Sriracha whenever I eat, and dislike the vegetables that come in pho, so yeah… I would say I prefer bánh mì over phở any day.
As for Thai food, Thai food was also something I had pockets of before college but had a chance to eat more of it in college as there were more Thai restaurants around me. Although I am not the biggest fan of Thai food, I do not mind eating it once in a blue moon. I suppose I like eating rice dishes with minced meat and basil and asking for maximum spiciness whenever ordering. As for Hmong and Cambodian food, the only time I had had a chance to eat both was back during last summer. For Hmong food, the one time I had it was in Hmongtown Marketplace in St. Paul, MN, some meat dish in which I found the meat to be very much savory. For Cambodian food, the one time I had it was in Cambodia Town Lowell in Lowell, MA, I had Cambodian shaved ice, so it technically was not actually food. Well, I would say that I would love to explore more about Hmong and Cambodian food as well as just learn more about both these cultures, as a whole. As for Sriracha, it was something that I had always known the existence of since my dad purchased it from time to time but was something that I just avoided like the plague for some reason until college. Although I love to put it in most things I eat now, I just always thought it had some funky smell as a kid. All in all, I had a really fun time reflecting on my tastes of Southeast Asian foods and how much I have gotten attracted to them in the course of my college years. Although I am mostly not a person who prefers finger food, mostly prefer rice over noodle dishes, and mostly do not eat sandwiches all too often, I guess Lao food, phở, and bánh mì, respectively, are major exceptions to my food preferences. I suppose I love and crave Southeast Asian foods a lot as a means of trying new things and learning more about what it means to be Southeast Asian American and Laotian Chinese American.
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Pho
See Xiong Pho is comfort food for me. But pho is also a luxury I did not have when I was a young child. It was not until my siblings and I started working that we found ourselves gathering at my parents’ place, often with pho as the main dish. It was a luxury we didn’t have before. 14
Corner Store Groceries Pachia Lucy Vang
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Before organic became all the rage and Sacramento was not yet the Farm-to-Fork capital, I was a little girl who sat on the edge of the shade to watch my grandma bag greens for the local corner stores. Those run-down places on the side of the road that people were too afraid to enter held treasure troves of Southeast Asia, grown in the very earth I was born on in California. They were greens I had no name for, greens that we'd bag and number for $1.00 a piece. I often wander to these stores and think about the men and women who still bag greens from their yards like we used to. It's now $1.25, so not much has changed, but I lament at how much longer I'll get to eat bouquets like these from yards of time pass. Places far away from the mountains and fields we used to call home, that we've made into the patches of green in our South Sac homes. Gardens. Seems like no one would ever really know unless they did it themselves. It's weird how organic these foreign veggies are, lining the back rows of "food-desert" corner stores people are too afraid to enter.
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CONTRIBUTORS Bao Thao is a refugee activist, a world traveler, and an avid yoga practitioner. Her name is pronounced exactly like the Chinese dumplings! Douachee Vang is Hmong womxn who is trying to find her place and agency in the world. When she's not stuck inside her own head, she is either writing her feelings out, watching gameplays on YouTube, or re-watching shows on Netflix. She will be attending graduate school in Washington this coming Fall, working towards her master’s degree in Cultural Studies. Henry Nguyen is first-year student at Fresno State through the Smittcamp Family Honors College. He immigrated to America from Vietnam when he was young, which allowed him to experience two radically different cultures at once. Initially, he had a difficult time balancing his culturally-based life at home and the contemporary student selfhood he possessed at school. He wanted to fit in other students, so he attempted to hide his Asian roots whenever he could. His poem, “When East Met West,” details his embarrassment when he brought traditional Vietnamese food to lunch at school. These thoughts changed as he matured and gained a broader insight into our society. The lessons he gained over the years have shown me that it is imperative to embrace your native culture because it is one of the factors that are unique to yourself as an individual. He wants to spread the message to others that we are all distinctive people and that these differences must not only be accepted, but also celebrated.
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Mai Yer Xiong is Hmong-American from Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and a Master of Arts candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Mai Yer plans to dedicate her life’s work to ensuring that marginalized communities can access economic opportunities and achieve their potential. She is the daughter of refugees and spent the last three years working in Laos, her parents’ homeland. Mai Yer enjoys reading novels about immigrant experiences, discussing privilege and feminism, as well as improving her salsa and bachata skills. Pachia Lucy Vang is an active member of the Hmong and Southeast Asian community. She believes sharing food is an integral part of being human and building relationships to support the continuation of culture and community. Pachia is a Cal alumni who has dedicated herself to many things around culture, being a generalist committed to elevating disadvantaged voices and perspectives in creative ways. See Xiong is the curator of the MAI zine series. Tommy Shee was born and raised near St. Louis, Missouri. He is three-quarters Chinese and one quarter Lao and identify as being Laotian Chinese American and Southeast Asian American. He is currently a junior double majoring in Asian American Studies and History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Xee Reiter is an experimental Hmong artist and food enthusiast. She was born on the west coast and raised on the east coast now living in Minnesota with her husband and three kids. She is most likely drawing in her sketchbook if she’s not working on art projects or concocting new recipes. You can find some of her work on her instagram @xeereiter. 18
ABOUT & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT MAI was born out of the Tamejavi Cultural Organizing Fellowship Project (TCOFP), a project of the Pan Valley Institute of the American Friends Service Committee. This volume was curated by See Xiong and Pachia Lucy Vang. See Xiong graduated from California State University, Fresno. She was born in Chiang Kham refugee camp and came to the United States as a refugee at the age of 5. Pachia Lucy Vang is a community organizer with a passion for culture. She is a Sacramento native who's spent the last year in Laos working with Hmong communities, exploring “homeland” in Yunnan and Guizhou, China. She holds a degree in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from UC Berkeley with a specialization in paj ntaub or Hmong textiles and its connection to the Hmong identity. Photo cover “Broiled Chickens for Hmong Party” is courtesy of See Xiong. This volume was made possible by a grant from the University of California’s The Critical Refugee Studies Collective, given by the UC Office of the President and the Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) grant # MRP-17-454891. More information about the Collective can be found here: criticalrefugeestudies.com Contact Mai Zine: Write: maizineproject@gmail.com Read digital: https://www.issuu.com/maivzine
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