UC San Diego

This text is presented in tandem with America’s Harvest Box, an exhibition showcasing a series of cooking videos that reveal the violent histories behind celebrated culinary delights. These histories are a direct result of aggressive United States military occupation both overseas and at home.

Chapter one of this work shares an excerpt from a piece of writing about the artist’s family tales, an archive of oral traditions that build her family’s collective story. It deals with the construction of narratives and truth, and the haunting nature of histories that cannot be told.

Chapter two of this thesis paper grapples more directly with issues of consent, violence, and consumption. It includes more referential information regarding the histories of the food items addressed within the artist’s cooking videos, as well as deeper analysis of present-day systems of blood sacrifice and colonial control. This chapter also includes personal stories that contextualize the relationships between individual and collective trauma.