RE:Opening Food Chain Letters
As the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the lingering discrimination towards the Asian Pacific community, micro-aggressions, assaults and hate crimes arose all across North America. My poetry and collage series, re:opening food chain letters acts as a reflection, travelling back to analyze and criticize previous historical events where the diaspora was inevitably forced to change their cuisines due to racial and political tensions.
Each poem realizes the interconnectedness of second-generation Asian Pacific-American experiences, especially during COVID-19. The many cuisines of this diaspora carry a variety of deep-rooted histories, stemming from colonization, Westernization, globalization, and the myth of the monolith. During a time where cultural displacement and discrimination becomes more prevalent within the community, there is a need to share and consume what feels like home. Throughout these works, I interrogate and address the intimacy of otherness through stories of assimilation and adaptation.
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Canadian cuisine
Vietnamese cuisine
Fusion cuisine
Cuisine -
with your family
with your culture
with your Self -
mì love you long time
more than a bang for the buck;
the price of survival
is cheap
when it requires you to compromise
your identity —
melts in a boiling pot
bellies
swell into large balloons
rising from a burning
heat;
it appears to be full,
churning within
until it’s ready
to let the acid eat away
your body —
a hearty meal,
betrays its own functions
in an instant
the intestines become weak
like noodles, if only it could stretch
so far,
longevity is just a fallacy
the malnourished have yet to face
hallucinations,
making them salivate
for their last supper.
SPAM: the american dream
is fulfilling
empty promises;
a SCAM
swindles the migrants
once tyrants feed them
SPAM: the miracle meat
that will fill all
the hungry bellies
grovelling for salvation
from the starvation
after a second
world war
didn’t just end there
in 1940, SPAM
showed how one man’s trash
became another man’s treasure —
hawaiian steak
SCAM: they served
a pork shoulder and ham
that didn’t pass its physical;
a meatloaf without basic training
an army quarreling over
how SPAM wasn’t just
junk meat —
it was a luncheon treat
during the korean war
in 1950,
americans arrived
heroes
gifted the deprived
with a will
to survive
so they could one day see
the land of the free
the year of the unlucky rat
plagues
cat,
cricket, and lee —
perhaps they now see
how luck is seldom
on our side
when someone takes from us,
and leaves the rest in pieces;
to pick up
from where we have left off
we go
open a can of worms
covered in msg(s) —
our food and health
safety
is inevitably a concern,
as everyone washes their hands
in the hopes of avoiding
symptoms:
sore throat, dry coughs,
pains, and palpitations
not limited to the syndrome
since 1968
customers complained:
skin flushing, throat burning,
head aching, and shaking
all in fear, of their own lives
but with little concern
for the cuts, bruises,
blood, sweat, and tears
of those who have started
to wake up in vain.
no MSG seen after 1968
a hysteria
circulating
through mass media
lead to what we now call
ghosting
restaurants that sounded foreign
originally served msg(s)
catered to the western
palate —
the ones who barely understood
our mother tongue
did not stick well;
umami
is too difficult to digest
and the smell reeked of mắm
mom eased the tension
with her cooking,
as she wanted to bring people
together
over time
the ghost that haunted
disappeared
for the people who were too afraid
to stomach
a lingering aftertaste
BEWARE OF A PHISHING ATTACK
the asians are somehow to blame
for the lack of food
consciousness;
in north america,
they eat beef, poultry,
and pork
even after the mad cow,
bird, and swine flu
in 2003, 5, and 9
they believed it was our fault
the industrialization of livestock
normalized and commercialized
the american diet
is supposedly superior,
as they say without batting an eye,
the asians consume
anything
that squirms, and would likely eat
worms, opened from a can
before feeding
the fishes in your sea
quiver lightly under their grasp...
hands run across the face,
slightly above the eye,
finding a place to rest
the point of a blade
spikes —
into the brain, it destroys
a nervous system
numbs
the idea of suffering.
