Overview

Home gardens, in addition to providing sustenance and satisfaction, embody a sense of self identity. This groundbreaking work on Vietnamese foodways, Farm-to-Freedom: Vietnamese Americans and Their Food Gardens brings to light how the Vietnamese diasporic population in Texas uses gardens literally and figuratively to set down roots in a new country. These gardens, often hidden in plain sight, establish the seat of Vietnamese immigrant culture, according to author Roy Francis Vũ. They can also offer Vietnamese Americans an empowering pathway to forging a new homeland duality by retaining ties to the foods and environs they drew comfort from in Vietnam. Farm-to-Freedom uses the concept of emancipatory foodways as a lens into gardens that serve a semi-palliative purpose by succoring the experienced tragedies of war and exile for Vietnamese immigrants and Vietnamese Americans, which arguably adds another dimension to the importance of the home garden. Vũ covers topics including but not limited to culinary citizenship, food democracy, culinary justice, and food sovereignty. Farm-to-Freedom reveals how these gardens not only provide those who tend them a greater sense of security and agency in an unfamiliar land but also give them the means to preserve and expand Vietnamese cuisine for themselves while simultaneously enriching food culture in the United States. With a wealth of original oral histories, community-based recipes and poetry, and photographs of home gardens in suburban and urban settings, Farm-to-Freedom provides a deeper understanding of the Vietnamese diaspora in Texas for scholars, professionals, and general readers alike.

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9781648431852

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Reviews

"""The work of Dr Roy Vu is an important anthology and documentation of the power of connectedness to our environment and each other. By recording the stories of the Vietnamese community elders; parents and grandparents, intertwined with the foods not found in mass at grocery stores, highlights the power of flavors and healing nourishment we can grow outside of our doorstep. The many stories and juxtaposing of reclaimed materials turned into planters, under stair wells in marginal areas and growing abundance, live on in my mind as a powerful testament to resourcefulness and creativity that define invisible structures and a gifting economy. In times of uncertainty, this is the medicine we are being called to study, design, and create in support of healthy communities and increased access to shared green spaces.""--Carol Burton, Director of Permaculture at Urban Harvest, Inc.--Carol Burton ""Delving into archival materials, extensive interviews, his own family's history and more, Roy Vũ has crafted an important book that explores the history and geopolitical context of Vietnamese American food gardens, revealing the deeper significance of these often humble yet lush plots growing fruits and vegetables such as kumquats, bananas, bitter melon, rau ram, okra, and water spinach. This is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the experiences of Vietnamese Americans and the importance of food and foodways for immigrants and refugees trying to remain connected to their culture, cuisine, and homeland while forging new homes in a new land.""--David Leftwich, food writer, editor of Edible Houston, and member of Foodways Texas Advisory Board--David Leftwich ""In his work of love, longing, and remembrance, Roy Vu takes us into the gardens and kitchens of Vietnamese cooks in Asia and America, tracing the ways that they have brought their foods over troubled waters and helped them thrive in unfamiliar soil. Vietnamese immigrants, including Vu's own parents, share their experiences of growing and cooking food from home, adapting to the new and cherishing the old. The story is both heartrending and hopeful, told with gratitude and care.""--Rebecca Sharpless, Professor of History, Texas Christian University and author of Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South --Rebecca Sharpless"

""The work of Dr Roy Vu is an important anthology and documentation of the power of connectedness to our environment and each other. By recording the stories of the Vietnamese community elders; parents and grandparents, intertwined with the foods not found in mass at grocery stores, highlights the power of flavors and healing nourishment we can grow outside of our doorstep. The many stories and juxtaposing of reclaimed materials turned into planters, under stair wells in marginal areas and growing abundance, live on in my mind as a powerful testament to resourcefulness and creativity that define invisible structures and a gifting economy. In times of uncertainty, this is the medicine we are being called to study, design, and create in support of healthy communities and increased access to shared green spaces.""--Carol Burton, Director of Permaculture at Urban Harvest, Inc.--Carol Burton ""Delving into archival materials, extensive interviews, his own family's history and more, Roy Vũ has crafted an important book that explores the history and geopolitical context of Vietnamese American food gardens, revealing the deeper significance of these often humble yet lush plots growing fruits and vegetables such as kumquats, bananas, bitter melon, rau ram, okra, and water spinach. This is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the experiences of Vietnamese Americans and the importance of food and foodways for immigrants and refugees trying to remain connected to their culture, cuisine, and homeland while forging new homes in a new land.""--David Leftwich, food writer, editor of Edible Houston, and member of Foodways Texas Advisory Board--David Leftwich ""In his work of love, longing, and remembrance, Roy Vu takes us into the gardens and kitchens of Vietnamese cooks in Asia and America, tracing the ways that they have brought their foods over troubled waters and helped them thrive in unfamiliar soil. Vietnamese immigrants, including Vu's own parents, share their experiences of growing and cooking food from home, adapting to the new and cherishing the old. The story is both heartrending and hopeful, told with gratitude and care.""--Rebecca Sharpless, Professor of History, Texas Christian University and author of Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South --Rebecca Sharpless

Author Information

Roy Vu is a history faculty member at Dallas College North Lake Campus. His publications include Our Finite Bounty: An Anthology of Sustainable Topics (Kendall Hunt, 2017) and Feasted Landscapes: Sustainability in American Topics Vols. 1 and 2 (Kendall Hunt, 2015, 2018). He is the director of Plant It Forward, an organization working to empower refugees to develop sustainable farming businesses that produce fresh, healthy food for the community. He lives in Irving, Texas.

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