Three Asian American Perspectives on Thanksgiving

By Jeff | Tuesday, November 24, 2009 | View Comments

As Thanksgiving approaches and my extended family tries to figure out what to prepare, I have been thinking about how my Thanksgivings when I was growing up were a fusion of Asian and American. Turkey and white rice. Cranberries and lumpia. Along that line of thinking, three Asian American perspectives on Thanksgiving caught my eye. First, this post by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang talks about how her family used to try to imitate traditional Thanksgiving meals and how Thanksgiving became more meaningful and more tasty when they began to create their own multicultural traditions. Second, I really like this post by Eric Nakamura, of Giant Robot fame, on one of his Thanksgivings, which mixes sashimi and turkey. The pictures are mouth watering! The third perspective comes from SSH…Thanks-Givin.. Thanksgiving, an essay by Andrew Lam, author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora. He talks about his very first Thanksgiving after arriving from Vietnam and what Thanksgiving now means to him.

How do you as Asian Americans celebrate Thanksgiving? As a strictly American holiday? Do you fuse Asian and American elements like sashimi and turkey? Do you not celebrate it at all?

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http://chopstix.wordpress.com moye

Half of my family is purely American, so my childhood Thanksgiving dinners were full on dinners with turkey, stuffing and the works. Also, lots of watching-your-elderly-relatives-get-plastered. Then my mom put her foot down about her in-laws so we had our own turkey (stuffed with rice. I'm not even kidding).

Nowadays, we like to do both: turkey, cranberry sauce and osekihan.
http://twitter.com/simbuyo simbuyong diwa

For as long as I can remember, Thanksgiving in my family's home was a fusion. My mother would prepare Turkey with all the fixings while the other relatives that came over would bring Filipino, Spanish or Chinese food. Over the last few years, as my parents got older, we would travel to Los Angeles to be with our extended family. During those celebrations, the food that was prepared was more American (mac & cheese, stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce w/rum, etc.)

I think the one of only reasons why we really celebrate it is to get together and have quality time. Getting sloshed with family is quite fun too.

-Rosemary
http://www.8asians.com/author/ancientone95131/ jeffat8asians

@moye: My parents also stuffed our turkeys with rice, and I liked them that way too!
ednacz

We only recently started celebrating Thanksgiving, but even still it's just another day of home-cooked Chinese food, just more of it. Tonight's dishes were Boston cod, pork dumplings, seaweed, rice, green beans in soy sauce, peeled shrimp, and bean curd strips. Dessert was green tea from Taiwan. As much as I love mashed potatoes and gravy, I don't mind our version of Thanksgiving- I don't feel so calorically guilty in the morning!
http://www.8asians.com/2009/11/26/my-asian-american-thanksgiving/ 8Asians.com » My Asian American Thanksgiving

[...] we have written about Asian American perspectives on Thanksgiving, Korean American Thanksgivings, and Asian fusion Thanksgiving recipes, I thought I’d share my [...]
fkwang

Thanks for the link. After you posted this, I got accused of all sorts of un-American activities. check the article again for the comments. And here's the link to the follow-up conversation. Who knew teriyaki turkey and sticky rice stuffing were so threatening? http://www.annarbor.com/passions-pursuits/one-r...
http://www.CarolLeeHall.blogspot.com Carol Lee Hall

Our Chinese American Thanksgiving consisted of turkey and sticky rice, gravy with jumbo canned button mushrooms from Chinatown, and American apple pie from a Chinatown bakery. I blog about it at http://www.CarolLeeHall.blogspot.com.
http://www.CarolLeeHall.blogspot.com Carol Lee Hall

At our Chinese American Thanksgivings, we had turkey with sticky rice, gravy made with jumbo canned button mushrooms from Chinatown, and apple pie from a Chinatown bakery. I write about it at http://www.CarolLeeHall.blogspot.com.
http://www.CarolLeeHall.blogspot.com Carol Lee Hall

Our Chinese American Thanksgiving consisted of turkey and sticky rice, gravy with jumbo canned button mushrooms from Chinatown, and American apple pie from a Chinatown bakery. I blog about it at http://www.CarolLeeHall.blogspot.com.

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