The Pepper: Migration and Metaphor with Kristyn Leach and Victor M. Valle moderated by Saehee Cho

with a special poetry reading by Mary Lau Valle

Co presented by Ssi Ya Gi, Second Generation Seeds, and GYOPO
Hosted by Nonhuman Teachers

There is no Mexican cuisine without the piquant acidity of chopped jalapeños in a homemade salsa, nor Korean food (since the 1500s) without its gurgling stews, red from sweet and savory gochugaru. Each person who uses a chile makes it their own, drawing out the smoky or spicy or acidic features important to their particular dish–even if they must substitute a poblano for an asagi gochu, or vice versa. Native to Central and South America, the chile pepper has traveled far and wide to become an integral ingredient in disparate cuisines. Under colonial rule, Indigenous Mexicans brought chile seeds and farming techniques northward, transforming and expanding their genetic diversity to adapt to new environments and taste buds. The chile pepper arrived in East Asia from Central America and developed unique genetic signatures which have shaped the Korean cuisine we know today.

Join us as farmer and seed steward Kristyn Leach and writer Victor M. Valle present the complex histories, epigenetics, mythologies of the chile, and efforts to protect heirloom varietals of chiles which are close to being wiped out by corporations seeking more uniform and controllable qualities. Their presentations will be followed by a conversation moderated by Saehee Cho, during which they will discuss how the migration and adaptability of the chile pepper may offer us tools of resistance, illuminating stories of colonization, Indigenous poetics, histories of agriculture, borderlands ecology, and genetics.

The evening will also include a special poetry reading by poet Mary Lau Valle on her Chinese-Mexican ancestry and a sneak peak of moderator Saehee Cho’s documentary that explores the Korean diaspora in Mexico. A conversation about peppers transcends notions of nationalism and cultural identity politics, and invites us to contemplate the magic of plants that retain so much genetic diversity that wherever planted by whichever people, they beget new worlds of of taste and can only ever be “owned through repeated acts of love and care.”

ASL interpretation will be provided upon request (please email info@gyopo.us).

Please be advised that this event will be photographed and filmed and that GYOPO may use such photos and videos in print and online, including in social media. By RSVPing and attending this program, it signifies your consent to be photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded.

Kristyn Leach, Second Generation Seeds

Kristyn Leach has been growing Korean crops in various regions of California over the past 15 years. She recently moved to Sebastopol to start Gohyang Fields, a seed research farm and community space. This site will expand on the work of Second Generation Seeds, a network of Asian and SWANA growers preserving and adapting plants and cultures.

Victor M. Valle, journalist and author, The Poetics of Fire

Victor Valle’s translations of Latin American fiction earned him an NEA fellowship in 1980 and the cronista gaze he brought to the Los Angeles Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his contributions to a series on Southern California’s Latino community. He next wrote Recipe of Memory: Five Generations of Mexican Cuisine (1995), a memoir based on the stories of female ancestors who had curated more than a century of recipes. The book garnered literary nominations from the Julia Child Cookbook Award and the James Beard Foundation Awards, an Italian-language edition and a chapter in American Food Writing: A Literary Anthology. Valle’s next books (Latino Metropolis in 2000, City of Industry: Genealogies of Southern California Power in 2009, and LatinX Writing Los Angeles: Nonfiction Dispatches From A Decolonial Rebellion in 2018) delved deeper into the contested genealogies of L.A.’s urban places. His most recent book, The Poetics of Fire: Metaphors of Chile Eating in the Borderlands (University of New Mexico Press, 2023) proposes an eco-aesthetic of culinary art.

Saehee Cho

Saehee Cho is a writer, cook, and filmmaker. holds a MFA in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. Her fiction and poetry have been published in both the U.S. and Mexico. She started SOON in 2015, a food-based project specializing in concept catering, food styling, and the intersections between food and art. She is a former resident of Pocoapoco, a multi-disciplinary artist’s residency where she first proposed her research project on Korean-Mexican diaspora. Since 2019 she has been working between Los Angeles and Mexico, researching diasporic communities and cuisine.

Ssi Ya Gi

Ssi Ya Gi is dedicated to sharing senior immigrant stories about foods, because the process of listening and transmitting our elders’ food stories creates opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural discoveries.

Second Generation Seeds tends to the kinship between the Asian and South West Asian/North African (SWANA) diasporas and the plants who have evolved alongside us. By preserving, adapting, and breeding beloved crops, we affirm that culture is rooted in our imaginations, not just our memories.

GYOPO

GYOPO is a collective of diasporic Korean cultural producers and arts professionals generating and sharing progressive, critical, intersectional and intergenerational discourses, community alliances, and free educational programs in Los Angeles and beyond.