This is the second in a three-part series by Jasmine Michel, a farm-to-table chef and writer who dedicates her work to the marginalized. An alumni of The French Culinary Institute and the Eco Practicum School of Ecological Justice, Jasmine's newest project, Dreamboat Cafe, is a small food platform of pop-up dinners and underground food journalism rooted in the effects of societal stigma and standards on minority mental health and liberation. Read her first post in this series here.

I OFTEN RECALL ...

an event that took place back when I lived on the island of Maui.
 

I was processing cacao with the other work-traders when an older uncle of Japanese descent walked up to the front porch of the farm owner’s home where our makeshift production line had been set up. I greeted him with the offering of a cacao I had just cracked open.

We all knew our place as workers and to keep mindful and distant when company came to the owner’s house. “See and be blind.” Yet I had put up no fight to the urge of hosting this uncle as if he bodied the same blood as mine. He took one look at me and said “You’re from Trinidad!” To which I responded, “No, uncle next door, part of me is from Guyana.” He looked to our farm owners and jokingly exclaimed, “You're getting your workers from the same place as cacao?” Referring to the Trinitario variety of cacao found in the Amazon forest of Trinidad. The farm owner, whom I loved despite her colonial ways, was maternal and wise when navigating the land and responded with, “Yeah, but she’s never been.”

With that, she crumbled culture like paper and everyone around us was compliant with silence, not knowing what to say or how to understand the depth of what just happened. Because I never traveled to my family's home, I was considered less than my heritage according to a standard of someone else.  

My friend Marcella Camara, of Young Gifted and Broke, a pop up art show and creative consultancy giving space to creatives of color in Durham, North Carolina, recently came home from a trip to Liberia. Her first time in her mother’s country of birth and life, we chatted about war times in Liberia, agro tourism and what exactly being “American” feels like while also being first generation.

Marcella described post-war Liberia with deep and casual love. “I think the war really hurt a lot of people, especially in my mom’s generation. Outside of the obvious implications of war with massive deaths, it also just stole a lot from the country.” Marcella went on to describe what used to be, ‘Hotel Africa’ and the ‘Convention Center’ having been major staples located in the capital of Monrovia, but are no longer.

An article published by The Center of Canadian Architecture discussing a field study and long term research project that “investigates the impacts of United Nations peacekeeping missions on cities, communities, and the environment,” describes the attempts made to rebuild the economy and structures of Liberia post-war: Although market rates were inflated, profits that could have been used to improve the quality of the built environment or to facilitate better access to essential services were not invested back into the city or the community. Everything was made to be transitory, exploited, and unsustainable.

Despite what structures were leveled during the war and Ebola pandemic in Liberia, Marcella describes being home almost like a cultural matrix of heritage. She mentions the love language of fishermen that articulated most of her diet while there, young locals upholding their version of western standards, and the growing tourism/real estate industry now being owned by foreigners that aren’t of Liberian descent or of color. “All the beaches are renamed,” she says, the really nice resorts that cater to tourism are botched by colonialism with money that notoriously hasn't gone back to the community. “People are definitely really focused on rebuilding. People just want better for the country, they want it to be what it once was.” 

We may not have the power on how to do it, but the vocabulary of reform has been pivotal in the movement of agro tourism and real estate. In the conversation of doing so, Marcella adds, “You can’t apply a western lens to non-western things.” Something I think worth taking with us on our next trip home. 
 

In the final installment of this series exploring the effects on systemic safety from Western standards in agro-tourism, Jasmine will be back next week to share how the pandemic serves us examples on how to take up space without leaving Native land in a deficit.

. . .

We are thrilled and grateful to have collaborated with Jasmine through the Share Your Voice initiative, an ongoing effort inspired by the #sharethemicnow movement. For more from Jasmine on the GFJ platform, check out these past instagram posts.

In food, justice, and food justice,

Tay + Dor

photo by Jasmine Michel

tidbits...

resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we're reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . .

You can contribute to Jasmine's Dreamboat Cafe, a multidisciplinary small food business dedicated to community popups and food journalism in themes of social fairness, mental health, and heritage, right here.

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