🦃 AAPI Thanksgiving traditions
(and recipes!)
Inspired by the candied purple yams later on in this newsletter!
Hi! Hope you all are having a good week :). It’s almost Thanksgiving, so we’re excited to get a bit of a break. We’re super grateful to all of you who have been reading and supporting us - this really has been such an interesting and educational experience, and we love writing this newsletter every week. 💕
As always, a prompt:
What is one way that you’re incoporating being thankful into your every day life (outside of this week)?
Love,
Jamie and Melinda
Also, before we get into things, a friend wanted us to share these 2 job opportunities in Philly:
Woori Center is seeking to hire a Community Organizer and Program Manager. Please see the attached job descriptions for more information about each position! If you have any questions, you can email Mel Lee at mel@wooricenterpa.org.
Woori Center organizes Korean and Asian Americans to achieve racial, economic, and social justice. Serving the Greater Philadelphia Area, Woori Center empowers the most marginalized community members, including those who are low-income, recent immigrants, limited English proficient, undocumented, youth, women and seniors. Through education, social service, community organizing, public policy advocacy and civic participation, Woori Center ensures that these community members can impact progressive change at the local and state levels. Woori Center is an affiliate of NAKASEC.
Woori Center is an equal opportunity employer. People of color, women, LGBTQ+ candidates, and people of diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.
Descriptions for Community Organizer and Program Manager.
News
👨🏻🦳 In a letter to Biden from the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, lawmakers including “Democrat Kaiali'i Kahele, the second Native Hawaiian in history to be elected to Congress,” urged Biden to keep his promise of diversity in his Cabinet. The letter asked him to ensure that AAPI consist of “at least 7 percent of Cabinet-level and other appointed personnel within the federal workforce” - 7% reflects of the proportion of AAPIs in the U.S. population. Although it’s awesome that Janet Yellen (whom my AP Econ teacher has a major crush on) might be the next Treasury Secretary, Biden still hasn’t announced any AAPI picks for his cabinet (aside from Kamala Harris).
🥬 After listening to the NY Times podcast this morning, in which a social services reporter talked to folks waiting in long lines at food pantries, I was reminded of this article I read from the Urban Institute. It talks about how AAPIs might be undercounted in data on poverty and access to social services, like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). The research was mentioned in this brief from the Food Research and Action Center, which mentioned that AAPI folks might be missing in the data and in the conversations around food insecurity.
In this study published last month in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, it was found that during COVID-19 times, “Asian households were more likely to face transportation issues when purchasing food.” Asian food-insecure households were also “more likely to report that they were afraid or did not want to go out to buy food during COVID-19 than White food-insecure households.”
Chef’s Specials
🍂 November is Native American Heritage Month. I found this YouTube interview by The Halfie Project with someone who is half Korean and half Native American. What was pleasantly surprising were the comments, where lots of people shared their half Native American identity… it also seemed that the interviewee was much more in touch with her Korean identity, but I’ll let you all gather your conclusions!
In the comments, I learned that artist Debra Yeppa Pappan, who is also Half Korean and half (Jemez Pueblo) Native, has utilized “digital imagery to share her story about being mixed race” and takes “pride in both her cultures are conveyed in her art.” See some of her work below.
🕯 The marketing organization I’m a part of at Microsoft has a cultural calendar initiative, so for an hour last week, it was lovely to listen to some colleagues read the stories behind Diwali and to have someone (located in India) show us how she made a particular dessert. I learned that the holiday is sometimes called Deepavali and that the Nepali call it Tihar. More on digital Diwali celebrations here.
🥔 For me, in Thanksgiving gatherings of the past, the turkey was always accompanied by a ton of Chinese dishes. So this article was some inspo (“Masala cornbread, miso carrots: 11 Asian-inspired Thanksgiving side dishes”), although I am not quite sure how competent I’d be in making these…
~~ 🦃 ~~
Hope everyone is having a good pre-Thanksgiving day. It's been a tumultuous year, to say the least, so we hope people are getting the chance to spend time with loved ones (in a safe and thoughtful way ). This will be my first Thanksgiving away from home, which feels quite strange, but I'm excited to eat my way through many pies this weekend.
Thanksgiving has always been a weird time of emotions for me. Being home and with family, it's often one of the holidays where body image and food mindfulness get a little bungled, but it's also one of the few times a year when I get to see the extended circle of friends my parents have made through the years. We don't have many biological families here, so normally every Thanksgiving, we go to our old neighbor's house and celebrate the holidays with 4-6 other Chinese families. We do a weird kind of fusion turkey-stuffing-cranberry-whatnots with Asian noodles and vegetables and (sometimes) duck? The "kids" table is exclusively me and early-30s adult children. Fun stuff! I'm sad to be missing out on that this year, but it's good that everyone there has been safe and quarantined during COVID.
Anyway, enough about that! We wanted to share some quotes and highlight how other AAPIs celebrate the holiday.
🗣️ Thanksgiving stories from AAJC
These Thanksgiving stories were really sweet and showed how people blend American and immigrant traditions. "Most of my family network here in America consists of these family friends who my parents have known for so long that they are, for all intents and purposes, family — such is the norm for many immigrant families." - Andrea Lau
^^ big mood
🤞 Blending cultural traditions
"Immigrants such as the families of Michael and Meichih Kim, who co-owns the restaurant Maum, have created their own traditions like eating KFC and combining Asian foods with turkey on Thanksgiving."
"Payumo’s family now holds a Thanksgiving kamayan feast, with stretches of Filipino food meant to be eaten by hand served on banana leaves."
👨🍳Chefs Sharing Thanksgiving Asian Recipes
Look here for Coconut Pandan Jellies, Ginger Rosemary Glazed Cornish Hen (with cranberry and date chutney), 5-spice tarte tatin, Bombay sapphire east smoked salmon with Japanese pickled plum and nori burrata (I have 0 idea what this means but it looks good), pavito al horno with a Chinese-Peruvian spin, coconut pie, foie gras bokkeumbap, 💚 BRUSSEL SPROUTS salad 💚, and coconut sweet potato jasmine rice.
Garlic umami edamame mash, Thai roasted brussel sprouts, Indian spiced green bean casserole, Chinese sticky rice, curry puffs with lemon yogurt, bhutta masala cornbread muffins, red miso-glazed carrots, candied purple yams, coconut grits, and mashed potato soup with dashi.
If only I had the motivation to cook all these things...
Though, of course, it's also important to acknowledge the rather insidious history of the holiday, especially its ties to settler colonialism and disease (esp during a pandemic). A friend recommended this podcast run by native women that would be good to check out.
Events
In case you missed it, here’s the recording from the event last week on “Building AAPI Power with 20/20 Hindsight: Post-Election Analysis and Impact”
November 28th - “ASTIG 2 year anniversary stream coming to you live in virtual realm. Join us as we enter another musical journey through the eras and genres of sounds from the Philippines & the diaspora.” To learn more, visit this.
December 6th 4-5:30PM ET- Learn how to make albums to share and archive family stories with SAADA! Register here.