From chop suey to spam, curry to sushi, the connections between food and the histories of Asian America run deep, weaving together themes of identity, labor, immigration, and geopolitics. As part of the Asian American Cultural Center’s “Life After Yale” series, a panel of recent Yale alumni will speak on these issues for their own food careers. We invite you to join us, and our four distinguished panelists (Rupa Bhattacharya SY ’03, Lucas Sin DC ’15. Jaime Sunwoo SY ’14, and Latha Swamy FES ’16) for an evening conversation. Dinner will be provided.
Latha Swamy FES ‘16 is Director of Food System Policy for the City of New Haven. She also serves as Senior Adviser in Planetary Health to the Former President of Mexico, Ernesto Zedillo, at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Through her policy work, Swamy focuses on socio-economic, health, and environmental justice and equity in the food system, from the local to the global scale.
Jaime Sunwoo SY ‘14 is a Korean-American artist from Brooklyn. Currently, she is working on Specially Processed American Me, a multidisciplinary performance project exploring the history of SPAM, the canned meat, in the Asia-Pacific and its place in the Asian American experience.
Lucas Sin, DC ‘15 opened Junzi Kitchen the year he graduated. Earlier this year, he was one of twelve chefs to become a Young Gun, an award bestowed by Eater to promising chefs in their twenties.
Rupa Bhattacharya, SY ‘03 is the Editor-in-Chief of Munchies, VICE’s food journalism outlet. She has written extensively about food & culture over the years, in addition to being a cookbook author and recipe developer.
Chewing the Fat is the Yale Sustainable Food Program’s long-standing speaker series. All events are free and open to the public. This event is hosted in collaboration with the Asian American Cultural Center at Yale, the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration, and the Traphaegen Alumni Speaker Series.