ACAM Dialogues Episode 05: An Interview with Fyonna Laddaran and Kin Chua (Hosted by Isa S. You, feat. Fyonna Laddaran & Kin Chua)
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ISA: The Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies Program would like to acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the traditional, unceded, ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), and Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. We hope that as we continue to facilitate these conversations about Asian diasporic communities, we also engage in critical dialogue about what it means to be uninvited guests and settlers on these lands.
Welcome to episode 5 of the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration studies (ACAM) podcast My name is Isa You. I’m the Multimedia Production Assistant at ACAM and I’ll be your host for this episode. We hope that this podcast can be a way to continue building connections between ACAM students, staff, faculty and community partners, while also providing our community members with a platform to share similar work they’ve been doing in their community during this time.
We’ve got two guests for this episode Fyonna Laddaran and Kin Chua. I visited their studio at Emily Carr to talk about their upcoming project Bahay Natin, which explores the connection between food and Filipinx resilience. Because we recorded in a shared studio, you might hear some background ambience but just think of it as an immersive experience. Anyway, let’s take a listen.
ISA: Do you mind introducing yourself to our listeners?
FYONNA: Hi, I’m Fyonna. I’m currently a fourth year Communication Design student at Emily Carr. And I work as an illustrator and designer at a creative studio called Colours & Shapes.
KIN: Hi, I’m Kin. I’m also a fourth year Communication Design student here at Emily Carr University. And I guess my practice revolves around information design, and also some motion design, with a hope to educate and entertain and inspire audiences.
FYONNA: That’s a lot cooler, should I talk about my practice? My practice involves mostly illustration, and a lot of aspects around play. And I don’t know what my hope and desire is yet, but I know that I want to put out joy and delight for others to enjoy.
ISA: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. So as the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program, we’re always interested in hearing about people’s own experiences of migration. So could both of you tell me a bit more about your and your family’s migration stories?
KIN: Sure. So I was born in Manila in the Philippines. And my parents and I, and my sister moved here when I was six years old. It’s just something that my mom had been wanting to do, I guess, since she was younger. So yeah, I guess my parents planned for that. And I don’t know what else to say.
FYONNA: Very similar to Kin, I was born in Manila as well. And myself and my two brothers, and my parents moved… well we landed in 2005. And then we officially moved here in 2007. So when I was seven years old.
KIN: What do you mean by that? Landed in 2005?
FYONNA: Oh, like we had to land to confirm our PR. But we didn’t actually live here until two years later. I’m not really sure why that had to happen. But I know that’s what happened. Yeah, and we moved to Richmond, and we’ve stayed there for the past 13 years.
ISA: And so in what ways do you think your family and your migration story has influenced your art?
KIN: I guess for me, my art and design practice didn’t really necessarily revolve around my, like, migration story or location or my origin too much until more recently. It was just something I started talking to Fyonna about because we were like… I guess after we found out that we’re both from the Philippines and moved here. It’s just something that kind of naturally showed up in conversation. That’s kind of how we got started in this grad project topic. And that’s really when I started thinking about it more in like integrating my Filipinoness and my background into my art & design practice. But yeah, I would say before that, I don’t know, it just didn’t come up quite as much until this year.
FYONNA: Yeah, I think I would actually agree with that. For myself, I got really into exploring what my culture and what my origin story meant, in terms of how it would inform my design and artwork, when, in my previous job, I was asked to create an ad that was geared towards a Filipino audience. And because I’m Filipino, they naturally assigned it to me, assuming that I would have knowledge of ad design or graphic design that suited Filipino people. But I actually, in doing that, I realized, I have no idea what Filipino design is, the history of Filipino design. And my immediate reaction to thinking about Filipino design is, it’s so ugly. Which is really interesting, because I was like, why is that my first reaction, and my dad owns a print shop in the Philippines. And I know he does some design. And I’ve always thought it looked ugly. Like, that’s really mean to say. But that led me into like, a very deep dive of like, so what does the design field look like in the Philippines? And what I found is that it’s thriving, and it’s beautiful. And it’s just extremely different than what we’re learning here. And different doesn’t mean ugly, I don’t know where I learned that from. But it’s definitely from a lack of representation as one factor, but sorry, the original question was, how does it influence our art?
KIN: I have a follow up question for you. I don’t know. Am I allowed to do that?
ISA: Sure. Why not?
KIN: I guess, you know how you mentioned how Filipino design used to seem ugly to you? Would you say, those same sorts of designs that now that you’ve revisited them, you’ve changed your opinion on them? Or have you discovered new, different sorts of art and design that you appreciate more than what was readily visible to you, when you were younger?
FYONNA: Yeah, I think I definitely have a different appreciation for them. Now. I think it’s a complicated question. Because I feel like the Philippines in current time, is still very heavily influenced by North America. Especially like, having English be one of the main languages that people speak there, now. I noticed there’s a lot of like, design trends that people use in the Philippines that are very North American, or very, like Eurocentric, or European. And so it’s like, the things that I’m liking and seeing that are “Filipino design” are still like, within the realm of North American design, I would say. But like, the very maximalist and the very, like, local print shop signage, I think those are definitely pushing my comfort zone into a space where I’m expanding my understanding of what “good design” is. I don’t know if that fully answers your question, but I definitely appreciate it more. And I don’t think it’s ugly. Ugly is also such a shallow word. Yeah. We didn’t really answer your original question.
ISA: No, it’s really interesting. And I’m curious how, like what defines Filipino design? How do you identify when you look at, you know, design?
FYONNA: That’s really hard.
KIN: I don’t know if there’s a specific definition. I guess there are some recurring visual elements that we could identify like, in terms of typography or hand lettering, like hand lettering is a pretty big thing in the Philippines. And there seems to be some consistent sort of black letter sort of lettering style that appears a lot.
FYONNA: There seems to be a large use of like, brushes, like brush strokes. Are you familiar with like, you know, when you go to a car dealership, and then there’s like, paintings on the windshield of a car dealership, it’s kind of like that. And then there’s also, if it’s not hand lettering, in terms of the typography, it’s a lot of like, we call it bastardizing texts, which means like, how would you define bastardizing? texts?
KIN: I’m not sure, I’m not sure what you mean?
FYONNA: Oh, like bastardizing as in like, we stretch it. And we like, expand it outside of using like…
KIN: the original proportion that it was designed for?
FYONNA: Yeah. And often there will be very heavy drop shadows, or the use of…. It’s like very experimental.
KIN: Earlier, Fyonna mentioned that Filipino art and design is often maximalist. And that’s something we just, you know, visually noticed. But more recently, we listened to a talk by Clara Balaguer where I’m not quite sure how to pronounce her name, but I believe she’s Filipino, and Dutch. And she had a talk discussing Filipino art and design. And her sort of rationale, or maybe like tracing back where that maximalist style comes from is, she explained it as kind of like, all Filipinos tend to think like when they buy, like, a sign or something to put in front of the store, that they should use every inch of that space to get their money’s worth out of it. Because that’s just, I guess, the mindset that a lot of us have, including myself, sometimes, and whereas in the West, like negative space, and like, using more like minimal visuals are is often seen as elegant, yeah, aesthetically pleasing. It’s sort of like, along those lines. In the Philippines, it’s kind of seen as like wasting space, or maybe seen as you’re not having enough for being poor or something like that. And like the maximalist approach is, I guess, more desirable there from perspective.
FYONNA: Yeah, that makes me think of maybe there’s a contrast between… I think there’s a contrast between the cultural values of the west where there’s an abundance of resources. And there’s a lot of wealth that allows us to overlook something as practical as space on a piece of paper. Whereas in the Philippines, a lot of it has to be practical and resources could be more scarce for everyday business owners. In terms of like, I don’t know, I feel like the cultural values there are different than here.
KIN: And that carries over into how things are designed and made.
ISA: And so can you introduce the project that you’re working on?
KIN: Yeah, so our project is called Bahay Natin which translates to Our House, and Bahay Natin in Tagalog, is essentially “of our house”. And the project began with an interest in discerning a connection between food and Filipinx resilience. And so Fyonna and I explored cuisine in the context of colonial occupation, and more recent stories of immigration and food, and ongoing rezoning plans affecting restaurants in Vancouver’s Joyce Collingwood neighborhood, which is an important cultural hub for many Filipinx people in the local diaspora.
FYONNA: We should also mention that throughout our project, we’ve been using Flipinx and Filipino interchangeably, to be more inclusive of non binary and trans folks. So the academic and historical readings that we researched through, provided us with the foundation to understand how colonialism and migration impacted Filipinx cuisine throughout time. And another ongoing mode of research throughout the project has been conducting interviews with Filipinx people in our local context of Vancouver. And the conversations we’ve had and the stories we’ve heard from them have been some of our favourite aspects of our project. And from these readings and interviews, we gained the idea to host a kamayan or a boodle fight, which is a dinner event using our hands for a few of our friends in the design faculty. And this kamayan event as a whole was one of healing, learning, gifting and receiving. And it really helped clarify how we’d like to refine our ideas and present our insights going into the spring semester.
KIN: Yeah, so from this research, we eventually decided we wanted to package all of these insights into two things mainly: a publication and an exhibit in our school’s grad show. Publication will include the transcribed interviews from a research phase, some portrait photography of our interviewees, and a feature for our Filipinx peers here in Emily Carr’s Communication Design Studio, and it plays with the idea of a metaphorical house. That’s why we call the project Our House or Bahay Natin. Each section of this house representing or each section of the publication representing the rooms, that featured interviewees can express themselves in their work. And as for the grad show exhibit, it’s in the form of designed dining table setup with a gift box on top. And the dining table display will include paper placemats, to educate visitors about Filipinx food culture, and many of conversations that detail our kamayan event that Fyonna talked about, and a celebratory tablecloth that visitors will be invited to draw on and write on as well. The gift box that’s on top of the table will include several takeaway items for visitors, such as postcards and stickers that highlight even more snippets of our food culture and food crawl zines that can introduce readers to local Filipinx restaurants.
FYONNA: And the way we kind of frame this whole project, as sort of just our understanding of it, is that we designed it to encompass both sides of a gift exchange. And so with our interactive exhibit on one side, we want to share the gift of our culture and cuisine to just a general audience, like anyone who isn’t Filipino or hasn’t been introduced to Filipino culture yet. And then with our publication, on the other hand, we wanted to show appreciation for all of the relationships and insights that we gained throughout the year from all the people we met and all the people who contributed to our project.
ISA: For any listeners who aren’t familiar with the area, can you also just explain what the Hollywood food hub is and why is it important?
FYONNA: Yeah, for sure. So the Joyce Collingwood area is in Vancouver? Burnaby or Vancouver?
KIN: Burnaby, near Burnaby.
FYONNA: Okay. And it’s a train station stop on the…
KIN: On the Expo Line. Yeah, the community’s kind of around the Joyce Collingwood station. So it’s pretty accessible to a lot of people who take transit.
FYONNA: Yeah. If you haven’t noticed, we also stop and start our sentences a lot and finish each other’s sentences. But yeah, this neighborhood and community is really important to Filipino folks around Vancouver because it just happens to be where a lot of kind of restaurants are there. And it seems we’ve noticed that a lot of Filipino people congregate, where our food is also. A lot of workers go through that area, especially because of the train station. And so we learned that a lot of them would just like pick up food in the morning, for their lunch that day. And then when they got off work, they come back to the same restaurant and then grab dinner. And when we visited that neighborhood, we realized how important and like how tight knit that community was, like customers knew who the shop owners were. People spoke in their mother tongues. It definitely brought me back to the Philippines. I felt very emotional when I was there. Mostly because the sights, the smells, the sounds, everything felt very familiar. And I haven’t felt that way in a long time. And we, sorry, as part of our project, we hosted that kamayan event, and we actually got our catering from that neighborhood. Because we wanted to support those restaurants.
KIN: I think I have a tiny bit to add on to that. Yeah. So for the kamayan event, we wanted to go there to support the restaurants, in particular, because there are currently some plans for rezoning in the area that could put, I guess, those restaurants and other businesses in danger of being displaced. So yeah, we’re just trying to really support the community as much as we can. In these times, in particular, I know there’s a lot of other community groups such as like Sliced Mango Collective, and other collectives that are trying to bring attention to that area and make sure they get represented in these times,
FYONNA: I think the rezoning plans actually have gone through and these restaurants will be displaced, unfortunately. But the attitude that we are seeing is that they’re okay with it, because it’s an expectation that they were going to get displaced. And it made us wonder a lot about how like, it seems so much that part of the Filipino experience is just being displaced. Whether that’s from immigrating, or like family separation or like moving from one city to another. And that’s been a really interesting and thought provoking topic for us.
KIN: So around the topic of Joyce Collingwood, there was recently a workshop or like an open talk hosted by Slice Mango Collective. And they interviewed the owner of Plato Filipino, which is one of the restaurants there. We call her Tita Bennett and some of our main takeaways from what she said was that representation for them is just so important. And especially because the Joyce Collingwood neighborhood like provides a space of celebration for the Filipino culture. And yeah, that tiny community represents, like the diversity of an entire country in a way and everybody there like, shares and loves or loves sharing, like sacred and beloved practices. And yeah, we’re just really proud of that area as a whole.
FYONNA: Yeah, JP [Catungal] was there too.
KIN: Right. He was in that same talk. Yeah.
ISA: So earlier you mentioned there being a connection between Filipino food and resilience. Can you expand a bit on that?
FYONNA: Yes, for sure. So the way this project originated, was actually, over the summer, I started watching this documentary called High on the Hog, which is a documentary kind of detailing how African Americans built and essentially created, quote, unquote, American cuisine, and how a lot of that is actually embedded in slavery, and like how black people were exploited and used, but then somehow, like, their food was taken as well. And like, placed into categorised into American cuisine, quote, unquote. And so that kind of sparked this idea for me, where I love food so much. And so I started thinking about, I wonder what the history is of a lot of Filipino dishes. I know, there’s like some kind of colonialism that happened in the Philippines, I don’t know too much about it. And I once heard like a story about in the Philippines, there’s this sauce called banana ketchup. And it’s like, bright red, and kind of gelatinous too. And that’s always just something we consume. But I never questioned one, why is it so bright red, and is it actually made of bananas? And someone once told me that it is made out of bananas. And it was because during World War II, there was a shortage of tomatoes. And so Filipino people used bananas to make ketchup. And then they just added food coloring. That’s why it’s like, bright red. And then I was like, that is so fascinating to me. That the origin story of something that we consume almost daily comes from war and out of like necessity. And so that sparked the whole idea for this project, it was definitely centered around more on food. But then that was the avenue for kind of expanding into the rest of what our project is now. And why I bring this up is because JP was the first person that we interviewed. And he introduced us to so many different authors and different articles that really helped us understand the connection between food and resilience. And he mentioned that through immigration, and like him being an immigrant to Canada, food was one of the first things that was used to police his behavior as an immigrant. Whereas like, ‘oh, don’t pack your kids smelly lunches.’ I remember my classmates always packing Lunchables and I always wanted it so badly, and it didn’t even look good. It’s just what other people had. And I have like, those memories inside of me, or in my mind, and I really connected with what JP said about how food can be used to police your behavior.
KIN: Yeah, I guess a more personal take on things like the resilience aspect of moving somewhere new and like being unfamiliar with everything essentially, as a child. One of the ways that helped me or one of the things that really helped me cope or like adapt more slowly into this new life was just continuing to have the luxury of eating my mom’s Filipino food, or like her cooking, essentially. And that was one of the aspects that just made the transition a lot easier. And helped me. Yeah, I guess transition to a new life in Canada, and not sure what else to add.
FYONNA: Okay. For me, it was a lot more around like, the topic of food is just generally very fascinating to me. I love learning about food history, and food culture all around the world. The only channel I watched growing up was the Food Channel. And that’s how I learned how to cook. And it’s also extremely inspiring to me to see how a dish is made. Like, it’s so cool. I don’t know why, I mean, in my spare time, I love watching ASMR mukbangs. It’s just that I love food so much. I love watching people eat food, I love gathering with people around the dinner table. And it’s also really fascinating to me that as I get older, to recognize how food can be so divisive, or unifying, or both, and I don’t really understand how food can be so political. But as I’m going through this project, I’m learning and understanding that food is so complex. And there’s a lot of politics around it. Yeah, originally, we were gonna go into this idea of Fiesta politics, because in the Philippines, there’s, we call parties like Fiestas. And how when the Americans colonized the Philippines, there was a lot of Fiestas that were thrown to celebrate, like American people. And how the dining table became a space of political affairs, and that the food that they ate was only made for like, the rich people and like the elite people. Yeah, we didn’t go into it very much. But that was an interesting thing that I’ve never heard about, Fiesta politics.
ISA: And I’m just thinking about the story you told me about the banana ketchup, and how so much of food for, you know, immigrants and for people of the diaspora is marked by innovation. Yet, so much of the current narrative around food, especially food traditionally cooked by people of color is based on judging its authenticity. And so what do you think of this phenomenon?
KIN: JP actually had a lot to say about this when we interviewed him. And because we had like a similar question about asking him what his thoughts were on, like, authentic Filipino food versus like, fusion food? And his answer was, essentially, he challenged us to question why we make that distinction. And, like, why we’re implying that one might be better than the other, like, in terms of like, like, you know, like a pure Filipinoness or pure Filipino food.
FYONNA: And he really kind of asked us to interrogate our definition of what authentic is, and what that means. Because like Kin said, I think we kind of came in with this assumption that authentic, equated purity, like what is pure Filipino food, and even as we speak now, something that our project is very focused on Filipino culture. But both of us are Filipino- Chinese. And like, we were considering introducing, like, triculturalism into our project, but biculturalism is already complicated enough. And so understanding how migration, trade, neighboring countries have all of these influences on cuisine was really interesting for us to learn.
KIN: Yeah, I guess going back to the point of like authenticity, or like a pure identity, that was like a recurring idea in several of our interviews. Also with Donnel Garcia, a local photographer, and April Milne, an illustrator we talked to, they both kind of shared the sentiment of how Filipino identity, there isn’t necessarily like a singular definition for that, or like a reference point. Because it’s more like an evolving thing. And it’s personal to everybody. And I’m speaking more in terms of like, broader terms of like identity, but that also goes back into, like authenticity of food. Like, one of the first people we talked to was my cousin. And I asked her what her favorite food is. And she said, spaghetti. In parties in particular, and Filipino spaghetti is kind of iconic, I guess, for it’s like use of more banana ketchup than usual, like, tomato sauce, and everything’s like, basically like intertwined. At this point. It also, always was I guess,
FYONNA: It also uses a cheese, that’s not cheese. Yeah. So it’s a very sweet flavor to it. And then, when we were talking to JP, he was like, when has spaghetti ever been like a Filipino thing? Like, it’s Italian? And so like, yeah, how was that introduced into our cuisine? And like. Yeah, your original question was around people in the diaspora and how our food is linked to innovation?
ISA: My original question was just thinking about how our food is, oftentimes, like through immigration, and like limited access to ingredients that you might have found in the homelands. Our foods are naturally evolving, like all foods, right? Yet, there is this kind of narrative around trying to preserve authenticity. And so yeah, I just wanted to hear your guys’ thoughts on that.
FYONNA: Damn, that was very well said. And I think that’s very true. And even then, like, a lot of like marketing, in terms of diasporic food, it’s like, ‘authentically Filipino food.’ And, when we were kind of looking at food reviews, for our food crawl zine, a lot of the reviews were like, “this is authentic… This is so not authentic,” like, a lot of those types of things. And I guess, through our project, we’ve been learning that authenticity is very subjective. And there are as many ways to be Filipino, as there are Filipino people. And, yeah.
KIN: Yeah, I totally understand the inclination to want to preserve, like, I guess, traditional foods, or recipes and so on. But I think that there’s space for a whole range of like, quote, unquote, authenticity and food. Like, there’s definitely people who appreciate the more traditional recipes, and like an equal number of people who appreciate like, you know, fusion or more contemporary takes on things. So perhaps it doesn’t need to be that binary distinction between the two things. Because it seems like from what I’ve seen, at least, people enjoy all sorts of food.
FYONNA: And, like, it makes me think of when we were doing our research, we have a friend in our communication design program who’s vegan, and he made a dinner for us. And then he started looking into Filipino vegan food. And then we were like, wait, what? Filipino vegan food. Filipinos are not vegan. That was crazy to us that someone out there was doing Filipino vegan food because we eat tons of meat, and like use tons of animal product. Which was very interesting to me.
KIN: Yeah. But I guess once you think about it, if you just think of the numbers, there’s like millions and millions of Filipinos. You’re just bound to have people who start exploring vegan options for Filipino food and stuff and that’s just something we weren’t exposed to until Tammo, our friend, I guess brought it up?
FYONNA: Yeah.
ISA: So you spoke to a variety of scholars and local Filipino creatives for the project. And so I’m curious, what different perspectives did they bring to the table?
FYONNA: So many.
KIN: Yeah, so many different perspectives. We keep referencing JP but I guess this is because he was the first person we talked to. And his approach was, he very carefully considered all of our questions, and he provided multiple perspectives as much as he could to each one. Like he would provide, like a historical perspective, as far as he knew. And if he wasn’t quite sure of the specifics, he would give us references to do some more reading on afterwards. Like, what were some of the readings?
FYONNA: There was one called Siopao and Power. Talking about siopao is like a meat bun that’s very commonly eaten in the Philippines. But it’s a Chinese dish that made its way into Filipino cuisine. There was one called Everybody was Boodle Fighting, which was exactly about our kamayan event and the history of it, which was really fascinating.
KIN: There was one he mentioned, I believe, a book called Dog Eaters, about migrant workers.
FYONNA: That was really interesting. Also, a big shout out to Kailey [Tam] for like, connecting us with JP and also for her to help us write a lot of our interview questions or just kind of like refine them into very succinct questions. Thanks, Kailey.
KIN: Yeah, so that was, I guess, JP’s approach, where he gave us a lot of, like, concrete things to follow up on, and just generally educate ourselves on several topics. And as for our interviewees in the more creative space, we didn’t ask the same questions to everybody. So some of our questions for those people kind of revolved more around, also around food, but also around the Filipino community and Filipino creativity. So I guess that’s kind of where our conversations went, right?
FYONNA: Yeah. And so for example, with someone with the group of Sliced Mango [Collective], we interviewed the founders, Kathleen and Claire, and both of them were around our age. And so it was really interesting to have that perspective of Filipinx Canadian youth, who are both artists who are leading an organisation who are immersed in the Joyce Collingwood area. And we asked a lot more questions around their organization and their mission. And so that was really interesting. And from them, I mean, after each interview, I would just be like fangirling every single time because everyone was just so cool and so generous in their thoughts and their resources, every single one of them expressed that we could reach out to them again, or that we could ask for more help afterwards. Yeah.
KIN: Yeah, they’re all super generous with their insights. And I guess from Claire and Kathleen, who Fyonna was talking about running their organization, one of their key points, talking about running the organization, was the importance of collaboration and rest, and making participation accessible. And all those things are kind of like key to sustaining their group and keeping up their community support, I guess. And I guess the other three that we interviewed, one of them is Una Gil, who is a graphic designer, kind of like us. She actually graduated from the same program as us. And yeah, I guess our main takeaway from her was her iconic line that “your stomach is forever, Filipino. And despite colonial mentalities, food is the one thing that’s always passed down.” Yeah, as for Donnel. We kind of mentioned that already. But he really encouraged us to think that we’re Filipino enough. And everything we do is Filipino because we are simply Filipino. And he’s also very generous with his contributions to the community. And he has this philosophy that “the smallest viable action that you can offer to someone can be a huge help to them, even if you don’t know.” So, he’s always thinking of different ways to give back to two people. And that’s something we’ve been trying to bring into our practice as well.
FYONNA: And for context Donnel is a photographer.
KIN: Yeah. So that was part of the reason why we wanted to host a kamayan event to share our culture and to give back to people in our program.
FYONNA: And the last person that we interviewed was April Milne, and she’s actually an I think, an administrator here at Emily Carr.
KIN: On top of her illustration, practice, yeah.
FYONNA: And actually, I think she graduated from Emily Carr, like a long, long time ago. Sorry, sorry, like a while ago, not to say anything. And something that we love about April is that one, she’s hilarious. And she’s like, she’s very raw, I would say. And the thing that she emphasized was tell the story that’s personal to you. And she kept saying that the world tells us to be one thing, or one thing at a time. But that’s just not reality. And there’s a lot of intersectionality and multiplicity in her work. And a lot of it is shown through, at least we found through her Instagram account, where her story highlights are so interesting, like, kind of grappling with grief, but then also experiencing a lot of joy through food, but also what family connection looks like, but also what her practice looks like. So that was really cool to see her personality shine through her Instagram account, because Instagram can be so performative, sometimes. Yeah, so I think all of our interviewees gave us such different perspectives that we really appreciated. It definitely pushed and expanded my understanding of the occupations and the spaces that Filipino people can occupy. Like, I’ve never met a Filipino scholar. I didn’t even really know that they existed. Like I’ve never heard of a Filipino scholar, have you?
KIN: There’s universities in the Philippines.
FYONNA: No, but like in North America.
KIN: Oh, okay. And even I was able to meet all of our interviewees once again, for photoshoots we were doing for the publication and all of them were super nice, super generous with their time. I was even offered food by some of them. And, yeah, it was just a really pleasant experience all around
ISA: Yeah, then last question. For our listeners who are interested in the project, where can they find more about it, read up about it?
KIN: Currently, it’s still in progress. So we’re, I guess, figuring out the specifics of that. But it will eventually be hosted on Emily Carr’s grad show website, I believe. Let me pull up the URL. You can find it on theshow.ecuad.ca. That’s t h e s h o w dot e c u a d.ca.
FYONNA: And you can probably find it on our personal websites as well once we’re ready to upload them. My website is fyonnaladdaran.com.
KIN: And my website is kinchua.com.
FYONNA: And you can also come to our actual grad show exhibit in person on May 10. From 6pm to 9pm is opening night, but the show will run from May 10 to May 24. And you can come visit whenever the campus is open. Thank you so much again for coming here.
ISA: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed.
You just heard an interview with Fyonna Laddaran and Kin Chua. You can find out more about them and their project in the links in the show notes.
Thank you for listening to this episode. If you have an idea for an episode of the ACAM podcast, we’d love to hear from you. Send us your ideas by emailing us at acam.program@ubc.ca. To be notified when the next podcast episode is released and to stay up to date on all things ACAM, please follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @UBCACAM and like us on Facebook at Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies UBC.