Koby Song-Nichols

My dissertation follows how Chinese Canadians and Chinese Americans have used Chinese food and foodways to feed intercultural, intergenerational and diasporic relations and communities in the multicultural cities of Toronto, Montreal and Phoenix. More specifically it documents and analyzes how Chinese Canadian restaurateurs fought for Toronto’s Chinatown, Eurasian sisters from Montreal used food writing to express diverging identities, and how Chinese Arizonan grocers created communities that shaped the wellness of later generations. By placing these histories within the same frame and centering Chinese Canadian and Chinese American voices, this work aims to help us recognize and reimagine the many ways we relate to, and care for, one another, our foods and our pasts.