Page 18 - April 16 2017 Issue For Web.pmd

PAGE 14 • THE FIL-AM COURIER • APRIL 16-30, 2017

Kitchen to Classroom:

Education through Filipino

Food, History & Memory

By SHANNON CRISTOBAL

“Issues and meanings of Unbeknownst to my
food are not always pleasant. grandparents, they were
In fact to insist on the positive exposing me to Filipino food,
aspects of food consumption people, language, and the
ignores the blind spots, in our culture during our weekly trips
critical understanding of the to the People’s Open Market
complicated ways in which (POM) in Kalihi. Despite their
people, particularly reticence to speak openly,
immigrants, relate to their they were able to
homelands and their communicate a hidden
cuisines.” Martin F. transcript rich with Filipino
Manalansan IV, “Eating Asian language, culture and
America,” 2013. tradition as I learned about
As a fifth generation Filipino food in the form of
Filipino American woman from production (cultivated, farmed
Kalihi, I struggled with issues or fished), procurement
of identity, belonging, and (bought, foraged, or shared),
what it meant to be Filipino in preparation (prepared and
Hawaii. My grandparents cooked), and consumption
were recruited as sakadas (kamayan, family or
from the Philippines during community gatherings/
the plantation era. events).
My grandparents did not My childhood expe-
directly teach or share with us riences provide a backdrop
the Filipino language, history as I am currently a Ph.D.
or culture which I will never student in the College of
know if it was due to a colonial Education at the University of literature, food studies, and
mentality, self-preservation, Hawaii at Manoa in the feminist theory.
or the belief that assimilation Educational Foundations My main research looks
was the way to better department. My research at the ways in which the study
opportunities. However, they takes an interdisciplinary of Filipino foodways in Hawaii
did teach us indirectly through approach to education which during the plantation era can
food and their food practices. incorporates oral history, reveal a history and
narratives not previously
examined or heard. I also
examine the factors that
influenced Filipino laborers to
co-opt, adapt, and preserve
Filipino foodways that signify
resistance and resilience to
retain Filipino culture and
tradition that is relevant today.
Therefore, I am interested in
developing and implementing
educational projects such as
the class I conducted at Lyon tactical learning, memory and I have included two
Arboretum that incorporates meaning making). I also want poems that best captures a
my passion for Filipino them to think critically and few of my life experiences and
foodways (planting, cooking, share their experiences and foodways journey. I wrote this
eating), Filipino literature how it is pertinent and first poem during my
(stories & poems-Amalia relevant to their past, present, undergraduate studies at the
Bueno’s Home Remedies), and future. University of Hawaii West
and Filipino lived experiences By focusing on students Oahu. The second poem is
(talk story & oral history). prior knowledge, background, about my mother’s Chicken
I want to help students K- and world view that is often Marrungay (Filipino Chicken
12 to move beyond rote deemed insignificant or Soup) that speaks to the idea
memorization and to read marginalized in most formal that women’s embodied
literature that they can see educational settings they can knowledge can and has been
themselves in that is culturally once more rediscover, passed on from one
relevant, learn by doing reconnect, and reclaim their generation to the next.
(hands-on, sensory and Filipino identity and culture.