The Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut held its annual Connecticut Ethnic Studies Symposium on Friday, April 5. For the first session, one of the panels was titled “Asian American Art and Storytelling” and moderated by Jannatul Anika.
The first presentation, “Sore Waters,” was by Irene Pham. They created a website to compile their “graphic memoir” about their life and connection to their family. Their family fled Vietnam in 1975 after the fall of Saigon. From this crisis came the creation of Vietnamese nail salons by the actress Tippi Hedren. Pham brings this up because their mother is a nail technician and deals with pain in her hands. “It’s pretty exhausting work; my dad is an engineer, so they both have to do precise movements,” Pham stated.
Another aspect of Vietnamese culture that Pham mentioned is their cuisine. Because of the coastal nature of the country, many of the dishes are centered around seafood. Pham recounted times when they would go to Hammonasset Beach to collect snails to steam or go crabbing by dangling a chicken leg on a string.
Water has a deep connection with Vietnam and with Pham personally. They spoke about how water and the ocean had been integrated into their life for a long time. “Swimming is something that takes care of my body by also being a metaphor for how we belong to it, as well as a geopolitical liquid that influences who I am,” Pham said.
The second presentation was by Rilee Roldan, titled “(Re)Connection.” Their story begins with their parents, who migrated to the United States. Roldan explained how they were able to visit the Philippines for the first time last summer. They stated that being able to visit their motherland and come to terms with their conflicting feelings forced them to “channel those diasporic feelings into art.”
Roldan grew up in a predominantly white town in Connecticut. “I always felt a disconnection between me and my Filipino identity,” they commented. This was further reinforced by the fact that Roldan’s family purposely avoided using their native tongue. Their visit to the Philippines inspired them to reconnect with their lost identity. Roldan joked by stating, “I thought, ‘Let’s do some therapy with paint!’”
They displayed a few art pieces they created for the project, one of which was a collection of five “balikbayan” boxes. Roldan explained that these are “boxes that are sent by overseas Filipinos to their family back home filled with all sorts of items and goods.”
The final presentation, “An Ode to Curry Patta: An Indian American Environmentalist’s Anthology,” was by Khadija Shaikh. Her project centered around the connection between “curry patta,” or the curry leaf plant, and her family’s history. “Curry Patta symbolizes in my family as a means of connection to culture, a connection to the Indian motherland,” she said.
When her family initially moved to the U.S., they had trouble adjusting to the food. Shaikh stated that her family searched for food from their homeland and brought some of their own. The curry plant was one of these attempts, yet they found that it did not handle the New England weather well. From trial and error, her family has grown many curry plants, some nearly as tall as her.
The plant isn’t just a source of food; it’s become a vital part of her family. “Curry patta was a sign of acceptance,” Shaikh stated. She mentioned how it’s become a symbol of the relationship between daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law. The new additions to her family initially had conflicting recipes or ideas between the mothers-in-law, but over time, their mother-in-law gifted them the curry plant as a way to bridge the gap.
Her family’s resourcefulness made her realize that sustainable practices weren’t a Western concept. “This anthology is an ode to those who came before me and those who will come after me. Our stories are valuable and worthy to be contributed to the environmental movement. The solutions to the anthropogenic climate change can be found in our livelihood,” Shaikh concluded.