In her genre-bending memoir Tastes Like War — a finalist for this year’s National Book Award — CUNY professor Grace Cho chronicles her quest to understand her mother’s journey as a Korean War bride who endured the traumas of war, dislocation, racism and, eventually, schizophrenia. Cho, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the College of Staten Island who earned her doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center, learned how to cook the food her mother remembered from childhood as a way to connect through the fog of time and mental illness. The book, published by CUNY’s Feminist Press, is a melding of personal memoir and sociological investigation — and “a wrenching, powerful account of the long-term effects of the immigrant experience,” wrote Kirkus Reviews.
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Episode Transcript
Joe Tirella: Last month, Grace Cho’s harrowing new book, Tastes Like War, was named a finalist for the National Book Award in the category of nonfiction. Cho, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the College of Staten Island, takes readers on a journey through the life and psyche of her mother, a Korean immigrant who began to experience schizophrenia when Cho was a teenager growing up in rural Washington state. Tastes Like War is part personal memoir — the story of Cho’s life as a young Korean-American in a xenophobic small town. It’s partly an examination of how race and gender impact mental health, and the story of Cho’s struggles to help her mother navigate the health care system. But at its heart, Cho’s book is the tale of a daughter’s deep and abiding love for her mother — a spirited and gifted woman who suffered immensely while growing up during the Korean War, only to endure the traumas of dislocation, racism and mental illness after emigrating to America.
Grace Cho, welcome to Book Beat.
Grace Cho: Thank you so much for having me.
JT: In your memoir, Tastes Like War, you detailed the prejudice and hostility directed at you growing up biracial in rural Washington State. You’re the daughter of a Korean mom, and an American born dad who was a Merchant Marine. Can you talk about your early childhood as a Korean American at that time?
GC: So it’s interesting because my earliest early childhood memories all take place in the world of my mother. Since my dad was a Merchant Marine he was gone six months out of the year and so I remember being in this world with her that felt very safe. She took us to Korea during summers, so I had some early childhood memories of being with her family with my aunt and my grandmother. And then once I started school, my experience really started to change. So I started school in this small town, a rural town that was very xenophobic. We were the first Koreans to arrive in this town. There were not any other immigrants there at that time that I was aware of. And so very quickly, once I started school, I learned all the ways in which I was “the other” to the people in that town. Constant reminders that I was Asian. I learned racial slurs at that time. I experienced children, you know, pulling the skin of their eyelids to try to make them look Asian, and often felt like, you know, I was sort of the object of their mockery. And it was, you know, like a weekly if not a daily occurrence to experience those types of things. So, you know, even though I was biracial, no one ever let me forget that I was Korean. So my identity definitely developed as Korean American, and I had a really strong Korean American identity prior to starting school.
