Kristie Song’s project for the 2021 Jack Straw Writers Program is a collection of memoir vignettes that explore her family’s history. In her conversation with curator E.J. Koh, they discuss the intersections of queer culture with Northern and Southern Chinese culture, the challenge of not speaking a relative’s first language, and food as a point of connection. “I think of food as a medium, almost, of sharing love, and sharing connection, especially because it’s hard sometimes to talk with language. . . . My dad [will] use a lot of these Chinese proverbs . . . and he’ll try to break it down, but for the most part when we’re able to sit down for dinners, he likes to reach into the past and try to share that with us, through these dishes, and through these fragmented memories.”

Music by Andrew Weathers, produced in part through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.