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Keywords

food and memory, Vietnam, Vietnamese Americans, immigration

Preview

Do you ever eat a meal so intertwined with memory that each bite transports you back to the moments surrounding it? For me, it’s paella. The rice dish seasoned with saffron, paprika, and lemon juice puts me right back in small apartments in Spain with my legs under a blanket-covered table, a heater blasting on my legs, laughing and shelling shrimp with Spaniards. I can’t eat paella without craving the company that surrounded me in those warm Spanish apartments. In Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam, Thien Pham chronicles his family’s immigration story via vignettes centering around his memories of food, beginning with the fish and rice balls on a boat of refugees fleeing Vietnam, to his first “steak and potatoes” meal in the US, and to the celebratory dinner of cå kho and rau muő after his US naturalization ceremony. The graphic novel tells an important refugee/ immigration story that engenders empathy, understanding, and reflection in its readers.

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