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https://hellogiggles.com/lifestyle/finding-my-filipina-heritage-through-food/

https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2015/11/filipino-food-identity-roundtable/

These articles are nice however I'd like to take the reader on more of a journey and exploration of something specific in order to address these things...

This one talks about the rise of restaurants and how maybe Filipino food has been undermined, with a confused identity which might have been caused by Spanish, US and Japanese colonisation https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/recipes/filipino-food-trend-restaurants-uk-london-birmingham-liverpool-manchester/250612

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Hands smeared with soy sauce and chicken fat, my brother and I tore happily into the food our grandfather had prepared. We clawed into meat like wolverines, ignoring utensils, gnawing on the bones. These meals were more than merry gorge-fests-they were the main gateway to our mother's family, our springboard to cultural connection. Over plates of crisp, cigarillo-shaped lumpia (spring rolls) or fluffy mounds of citrus-infused ponsit (noodles), my grandparents would unspool stories about the Philippines. Sampling ice cream made with ube, a violet yam, led to spooky tall tales from the countryside where they grow. My mother emigrated when she was six; for her, food and memory are inextricably tied. She often reminisces over one long bus ride through the countryside. A roadside stand selling piping-hot balut-boiled duck fetuses, a snack that freaked me out-was, for her, comfort.

Our favorite dish was adobo: a hearty stew of chicken or pork doused in tangy vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and peppery bay leaves. However, there was an unexpected twist. Within the fragrant folds of a chicken thigh, our grandfather, whom we call Deng, would conceal whole black peppercorns. With our brains focused only on our hunger, we would inevitably forget they hid there-lying in wait. We'd lift a deceptive morsel to our mouths, chomp down, panic. Deng, who always has a mischievous glint in his eye, would smile as a surprise fire spread inside our mouths. The betrayal was jarring. But it was also a badge of honor. This was how it was done in the Philippines, and we were part of it.

My mother is a chef who ironically never cooks Filipino cuisine. Even though her family settled in diverse San Francisco, sampling different cuisines was not a regular pastime during her childhood. This was a practical immigrant family; they cooked Filipino food and interacted with Filipino people. Spending money on vacations to distant lands was unheard of. I suspect that when my mother became an adult, she had had enough; adobo and balut were the last things she wanted to encounter. Enrolling in cooking school, she traded the dishes of her homeland for elaborate French techniques and Chinese flavors. She learned to make Italian pasta from scratch, not ponsit. So for my brother and I, Filipino dinners with Deng were our only portal.

Over time, our gastronomic gateway narrowed. When I was 12, Deng had a blocked artery and underwent an angioplasty. It triggered a shift in our family. Ripe, salty meats became sensible portions of salmon and fresh vegetables. Blueberries from the garden were dessert. But not all was lost. My father is also a skilled cook who grew up helping his mother in their kitchen. He met my mother while they worked at a chic, breakneck-paced restaurant in San Francisco's Marina district. Mom worked the line while he, apparently a grungy engineering student who sought a kitchen job so he could take home leftovers, washed lettuce. There, the head chef had an innovative vision; the menu changed daily. Each day brought new gastronomic experiments. Like my mother, my father also grew intrigued by unfamiliar flavors. They bonded over exploring and diving into new tastes and techniques.

Years later, he decided to tackle Deng's adobo recipe. But as dishes often do when they change hands, it warped. Dad instinctively took cues from his upbringing. He browned meat and garlic in separate batches, building flavor like his Serbian mother taught him. He opted for apple cider vinegar over traditional cane or coconut vinegars. A daub of tomato paste entered the mix. While still comforting and delectable, it became a curious blend, vaguely Filipino and distantly European. Like us, his children.

While dad's adaptation was tasty, the holidays would route us back to "authentic" Filipino food. We'd crunch through stacks of lumpia between bites of Thanksgiving stuffing. My mom, at my brother's and my request, occasionally channeled her ancestors. She slow-roasted lechon, a whole pig crackling with brittle, burnt-sienna skin. The holidays became an important tether, especially as time passed. As I grew, I resembled a tan version of dad's Serbian mother-adopting an appearance that others were quick to deem exotic, "interesting," even confusing. Sometimes, right after meeting me, strangers would feel impelled to decipher my DNA. From early in life, I had the uneasy sense that my existence perplexed people. I got used to having my features scanned intently. Saying I was Filipino was always met with surprise. Yet even in these moments, perhaps due to those formative meals with my grandparents, I never doubted my Filipinoness. I knew I could remain close to my mom's side even though I looked more like my father.

This belief crumbled in college. One evening, I went with a full-Filipino acquaintance to my school's Filipino club. I immediately knew I'd made a mistake. Conversations in full Tagalog-which I never learned-peppered the air. I froze, realizing that the only "authentic" Filipino people I knew were my grandparents. I became hyperaware of my mixed features. I felt most alienated, however, when someone handed me food. Atop a hump of white rice was a meaty slab of unknown origin, pink and glistening like an open wound. "You haven't had spam before?" someone asked as I gaped. I thought about Deng's arteries. No, salt-engorged meat pucks were not a staple in our health-conscious family. My denial triggered an interrogation. Others chimed in, asking if I knew about other dishes. To me, it was a flurry of foreign words. Even those who appeared mixed like me knew more than I did. "My dad is white," I ended up stammering. "And my mom doesn't really cook Filipino food." I was too overwhelmed to get into why.

I left the meeting feeling both raw and confused. I felt I had been woefully misinformed about a large part of myself. I knew I was always slightly removed; I didn't speak the language and hadn't even visited the Philippines. But this whole time, I thought I at least knew Filipino food, my strongest cultural currency. Now, it seemed I knew nothing. Most of my recent Filipino food encounters were of my dad's bootleg adobo.

This college experience left me waffling. Was I a fraud to my heritage? Internet searches yielded more dishes that I'd never heard of. I began to believe that, worse than knowing nothing, I only picked at the parts I wanted to encounter-fun, romantic things: food and fairy tales. Even though others are quick to label me non-white, I began to wonder if I really exemplified white privilege.

Years later, a photojournalism class gave me a chance to repel down into my Filipino hertiage. A project required that I explore a New York City neighborhood. I chose Little Manila, spanning just a few blocks in Woodside, Queens. The Filipino market brimmed with more wares I couldn't identify, foods, tools, and ingredients that I probed like an anthropologist. At a family-packed restaurant I tried kare-kare, a classic oxtail stew. It swam in a viscous peanut sauce that I found almost too intense. At a café, I tried halo-halo, a famously decadent dessert piled with colorful accoutrements. (Even non-Filipinos know this Instagram-worthy treat. But somehow, I'd never had it.) Those around me watched a soap opera in Tagalog. I suspected that even if it were in English, I wouldn't have understood it.

At the local Filipino community center in Queens, I found a disorienting mix of welcoming kindness and bewilderment. For every warm interaction, I met someone who didn't understand my presence. They would wonder at my explanation that my mother is from the Philippines. "Your father must be Caucasian," one man declared. I was the one with the camera but seemed the most exposed. "Wow, you don't look Filipina at all," another man said, holding his gaze on my eyes. He then said what I've heard dozens of times before. "You look Italian," he offered. "Or Indian." I was back to explaining my bloodline within the first minute of meeting people. I was back to being an other. But this time, those most puzzled looked just like my grandparents.

When I eventually moved to Queens, Filipino food was starting to trend in New York City. Several eateries promoted chic fusion dishes. The thought that hipsters would queue for balut was odd to me. Friends would ask about Filipino food like I was an expert. It emboldened me to try again to learn more. Intrigued by hearing about a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Little Manila, I trekked through the neighborhood where I once felt so foreign. From a glance, Little Manila looks like other Queens enclaves that run along the borough's No. 7 train line-always shrouded in a bit of darkness from the elevated track. The key to distinguishing Little Manila from neighboring South Asian or Latin neighborhoods, which transition from one to the next remarkably suddenly, are the businesses. Branching out from the main artery of Roosevelt Avenue, salons or travel agencies with Tagalog printed on the outside share blocks with muted brick apartment buildings. Walking down the street is like stepping into a symphony of Tagalog and other Filipino dialects. Queens emits a sense of realness-this is where families live. This neighborhood is where Jolibee, the beloved Filipino fast-food chain, established its first New York location. I always get the sense that if my mom's family chose New York instead of California, this is where they would live.

My destination was Papa's Kitchen. The restaurant is about the size of a subway car; meaty aromas gliding in from the kitchen hover over the few tables inside. Twinkle lights and cushions give the essence of a family room. A woman peered over from the corner before insisting with the warm zeal of an auntie that I sit and relax. Beth Roa, who floats around with a calm authority, co-owns the restaurant. Her brother, Miguel, serves up food on unpretentious paper plates lined with bamboo leaves. Most of the menu was unfamiliar to me. But this time, that was okay: Many, Beth said, enter Papa's without ever trying Filipino food before. She was used to detailing ingredients and customs. Her demeanor was gentle and disarming. When she learned I sought more information about my mom's side, there was no judgment. Not even a quick exploratory assessment of my face. She simply explained.

My first meal was crispy pata, something certainly missing on Deng's menus: a pig trotter submerged in a deep fryer. It rises hissing and glistening, a crunchy chunk of fatty goodness. Another night, Beth brought out a piece of tamarind from the kitchen. It was a key ingredient in the sinigang, a sour soup that I slurped as snow fell outside. Later, she recommended dinuguan, a generous pork stew simmered in pig's blood, chilis, and vinegar. One southern-Filipino dish became my favorite: satiny coconut milk with green beans and tender squash. Anomalous red flecks dotted the opaque surface. At the first mouthful, I realized what they were. As the chilis' sting flooded my mouth, I recalled being a kid, the victim of Deng's peppercorn mischief. Suddenly, tasting foods wasn't rife with the fear that I didn't know anything. Instead, I felt a playful sense of discovery. Explore if you want to, Beth said.

As I ripped into more pig trotters, she offered Tagalog songs to listen to, travel guidance, and other tidbits. Again, I was sitting and eating while listening to stories about the Philippines. For years I had agonized so much over being an impostor that I forgot the main joy of my grandparents' table: connection to one part of myself.

One evening at home, feeling exhausted but facing a package of chicken thighs in the fridge, I did what my chef mother often does: made up dinner as I went along. I opened my cabinets and started throwing things in a pot. I browned the chicken. I deglazed the pot with some vinegar before stirring in garlic. I emptied the rest of a half-used can of tomato paste. I returned the chicken and sprinkled in soy sauce. As I tossed in a bay leaf, I stopped and laughed out loud. Without realizing it, I assembled my dad's adobo. His dish may not have been original, but for me-who conjured it like a spell that lay deep in my bones-it was authentic enough.

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I food-crawled my way to understanding my Filipina identity, one kare-kare bowl at a time

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Hands smeared with soy sauce and chicken fat, my brother and I tore happily into the food our grandfather had prepared. We clawed into meat like wolverines, ignoring utensils, gnawing on the bones. These meals were more than merry gorge-fests-they were the main gateway to our mother's family, our springboard to cultural connection.

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The interview went very well! It lasted around 35 minutes and Thirdy was a great character, very animated and theatrical especially when talking about emotional topics such as how happy people were, his disbelief of how popular his service was, and also the depression that his community felt.

He responded well to my questions and kept going on and on without my prompting. I used some open questions such as "can you tell me about the Jollibee story?" and he went on from there

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NicInQuarantine/Nicole Machado - I like this one as it doesn't show any faces necessarily but as the film builds up, we see shoes walking, hands, the back of someone. The essay that is narrated is about hope and solidarity during lockdown and one shot and narration pairing that worked well was when Nicole said "is anyone else feeling freer than ever?" and shows a shot of sheep in a field, who have a lot of space to roam around in. It shows that the shot does not need to directly illustrate what the narration is saying, but can connote it in a more abstract way.

Carlos Melim - I do like the visual style as many of the shots feel very macro/intimate and this may connote that life inside during lockdown is very intimate with a lot of time spent just from his own perspective.

Gloria Kurnik - I really like the use of shadows in this one. I also like that she uses text on screen rather than audible narration, which gives us time to focus on the other audio elements of the video (baby crying, sound of the street)

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Featured work * Written by Ellie Cameron-Krepp, Community Manager

As the Coronavirus pandemic took hold, physical distancing and stay at home measures became the new normal. Despite the challenges of life under lockdown, we were blown away to see creators adapting to new ways of working, producing content from home and documenting the world around them.

To showcase and celebrate the never-ending creativity of our community, we asked Genero creators to share their stories of creativity during COVID-19. The result is an amazing collection of animation, live action and stock footage short films, each with their own unique perspective on events and experience of this year.

We've highlighted some of the stand out films below, created during COVID-19 by filmmakers, animators and motion designers around the world.

Credits:

From left to right

If you're looking for remote video production work, find out more about becoming a creator with Genero here. Create an account for free and log in to access our latest briefs.

Crafting a psychedelic music video for The Doors with director duo Brendo + Gonfiantini

Featured work * 4min read

Behind the Work: How Genero helped Burt's Bees flip the script on oral care advertising.

Featured work * 4min read

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Creativity never stops: Short films and stories from lockdown

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Featured work * Written by Ellie Cameron-Krepp, Community Manager To showcase and celebrate the never-ending creativity of our community, we asked Genero creators to share their stories of creativity during COVID-19. The result is an amazing collection of animation, live action and stock footage short films, each with their own unique perspective on events and experience of this year.

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The sound was the contributor's narration, quickly telling short stories of the times in her life in the 80s/90s as prompted by the Photo Booth photos that she took at the time. We also hear, when the image changes, a Photo Booth shutter noise.

The piece feels quick but we get a sense of the contributor's journey and story in only 1 minute.

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A short documentary about a teenager finding her identity in the intimacy of the 1980s and 90s photo booth.

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What I know so far: Thirdy is the person who drove Jollibee orders from London to Taunton (300 mile round trip). I don't know anything else. He is from the Philippines?

1) Tell me your name, age, occupation, where you're based?
2) How long have you been living in London?
3) Where are you from/where is your heritage?
4) Where do you consider to be your home?
5) How do you feel about being away from the Philippines?
6) Is there something that you miss about the Philippines?
7) How have you been able to connect to the Philippines whilst being in London?
8) How did you feel when Jollibee first opened in London?
9) Tell me about your business driving Jollibee from London to Taunton. How and why did you start? When did you start? Are you still doing it? How often do you do it? How many people order from you? What kind of things do they ask for? How do your customers react? Who are your customers and how did you get them?
10) Why do you think your service has been so popular?
11) Has your demand for deliveries decreased now that Jollibee is open in Cardiff?
12) What's your favourite Filipino food?

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This shoot will be a documentary-style, staged

ood POV of locations and removal of human element
- federico m table for one
- storyboard: 4 locations for photos and do I want to do a documentary element or a still life playful one?

LOCATION 1 - Jollibee (Leicester Square) (opening 10am)
- Day: Saturday 21st May
- Weather: Cloudy
- Time: mid-morning
- Items to buy: Jolly spaghetti, chickenJoy bucket, ask for more packaging if they will allow!

SHOT LIST:
- Inside Jollibee of the food stacked up bring prepared
- Outside Jollibee - food stacked up

LOCATION 2 - Southbank beach (OPTIMAL TIDE TIME IS 12:47!)
- Day: Saturday 21st May
- Weather: Cloudy
- Time: 12:30 onwards
- Items to bring: 'beach' towel (my stripy towel)

SHOT LIST:
- food on the beach
- food on the pier

LOCATION 3 - Telegraph Hill (Upper Park)
- Day: Saturday 21st May
- Weather: Cloudy
- Time: 4pm
- Items to bring: food

SHOT LIST:
- Food on a bench
- Food by the grass

LOCATION 4 - My flat (exterior)
- Day: Sunday 22nd May
- Weather: sunny/cloudy
- Time: morning (due to natural light on east side of flat)
- Props: person at the door in slippers

SHOT LIST:
- Food on top of someone's car or in someone's car seat
- Food at the front door
- Door slightly open with someone picking the food up with hand
- Same as above but also without hand, just slippers

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I have decided not to use any of the photos from this shoot, as they don't flow with the story well.

After a tutorial about my written piece, we decided to cut my mum from the piece as she was not a customer of Thirdy's, and so her perspective didn't add anything to the story. I also did not have access to her after this shoot, as she went over to the Philippines.

Instead, I took the more staged documentary style approach to the food photographs, cutting out portraits of people and focusing on the food in culturally contrasting locations, or locations that connote another part of the UK.

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- Quote from an interview that sums up their experience of food/home
- "The ice cream shop that takes me home" - Feedback from Goda, can be a generic title so I will adapt as my research comes
- Situating reader in a place e.g.: Mamasons ice cream shop?
- Above link is image of a school field trip to Mamasons ice cream shop, "What better way to learn more about the Philippines than by tasting Filipino desserts with @chefomarshah?" (Omar Shah - Filipino chef and consultant)

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by MAMASONS DIRTY ICE CREAM (@mamasonsdirtyicecream)

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- Research current/relevant stories existing around the topic
- Ask loads of questions
- News stories can be springboard into research/stories to help think of more angles, details, facts
- Central question (pus subquestions) to answer (Rachel story in GQ)
- Research: I should find out more about Filipino migration to the UK

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The South-East Asia Diaspora in the UK - Foreign & Commonwealth Office (link to PDF)
- "The UK's South-East Asia Diaspora has probably doubled in size since 2001" - ~400,000 SE Asians in UK, 1/3 in London area.
- 2001 census - 132,697 Filipinos in England (including migration and birth in the UK) - highest category of SE Asians by far
- 2012 Office of National Statistics 2012 - by nationality there are around 68,000 not including those born in UK
- "Regardless of birthplace, the Philippines Embassy in London estimate there are roughly 200,000 Filipinos in the UK. Pinpointing an accurate and reliable figure for the Southeast Asia Diaspora in the UK is unattainable but base on the data available there may be up to 400,000 SE Asians in the UK."
- Growth - "The Filipino population in the UK is considered the largest outside Asia and the US. Over the past thirty years, Filipinos in uK has increased by more than 800% from 18,000 in the 1980s by roughly 200,000 today. Since 2000 thousands of Filipino nurses have moved to the UK following the government's massive recruitment to attract them; English speaking Filipino nurses are generally considered very professional, well educated and have the same high standards of nursing care as British professional nurses."
- Location: "Around 36% of the SE Asia Diaspora is located in London. In Outer London, the Filipino community is the largest living mainly in Brent (4,055) and Hounslow (2,607) - in Inner London, the Filipino community is the largest living mainly in Newham (5,176) and Kensington and Chelsea (2,750).
- Employment - 2001 and 2011 census, most likely to be working in hospitality, health, beauty, food processing, real estate/renting and retail/trade. 70s and 80s -

JOLLIBEE STATS - sales increase during lockdown

FIND: how much of Jollibee demographic is of Filipino heritage?
FIND: how general diasporas interact with food of their homeland, do they always flock to food from home?
FIND: press releases, books, journals, academic articles, online social media and discussion forums, other media not just news
HOW TO FIND PEOPLE ON SOCIAL MEDIA: follow people, search Facebook groups, Twitter searches, hashtags and geotags

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- Why have so many Filipinos moved to the UK?  Why are they the most common South East Asian diasporic group here?
- Have corner shops suffered as a result of fast food chains opening here?
- Are Filipinos happy here?
- When and why did Filipino restaurants grow so rapidly in the UK?
- Who is visiting Filipino restaurants?
- Can the increase in Filipino food culture be accredited at all to social media?

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- Think of a hook before
- Ask questions, listen and record accurately
- Ethics: tell them we are recording
- Backstory, scene, atmosphere
- Start with basic questions, full name, age, where from
- Hook: why am I interviewing them, what questions can I ask to guide to my hook
- Nosey but polite
- Open, direct questions, hard questions in the middle, listen, wait til they finish, respond to what they say, conversational, ask for clarification don't guess

INTERVIEWING HAWWA
Hawwa Abudu, 19 going on 20, living in Plumstead with family, living there since 2008, "I was born in Luton and lived there til I was 2, then moved to Kidbrooke til I was 4, that's when I moved to Nigeria. Then came back here."
Pointing to scar n hand "during he pandemic my hand acually - on the metal part of the door - and my hand caught the metal part of the door. I think I was walking through my room quickly and my hand sctarcthed it, the skin caughtit and so... that's how it happened."
"i felt like a pinch but not too painful"
"I'm ok with scars, there's always a little story."
Laughing

"I'm okay with scars, there's always a little story," chuckles Hawwa Abudu, a 19-year old student at Goldsmiths, University of London.

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- Need to caption pictures
- Headline and subline, byline, name, dropcap

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Exploring the UK's growing Filipino diaspora's interactions with food 'from home' with 300-mile deliveries, mass home cooking and new food outlets.

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-  Idea: "why you should go to a Filipino party", "why you should eat with a Filipino"
- Subheading then needs to be a few reasons why then leading to my article
- But can I involve identity and finding identity in this? Allude to why Filipinos born here should want to do this too?

Headline and subheading ideas:
- Subheading: Since 1981, the Filipino population in the UK has grown by over 800% - but have you ever tried Pinoy food?
- Subheading - Over 400,000 Filipinos live in the UK,
- Subheading: From ice cream shops to food trucks, mama's chicken recipe and Jolly Spaghetti, Filipino food shines a light on the diaspora's love, care, and a community away from home.

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- Filipino diasporic population is highest of SE Asian in UK, and has been rising since 2001-2011 census

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For people I know already: Hey __! I hope you are well. As part of one of my uni modules I'm creating a multimedia piece, for which I'd love to explore how/if members of the Filipino diaspora interact with, experience, and value Filipino food.

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After my initial interview with my mum, my new angle is going to focus on the people who are facilitating the consumption of Filipino food. From there I can talk with them about their own connection to home, their motivations for doing what they do, and their customer response to their businesses. My mum mentioned two people who I am going to contact for interviews and photography: a man who used to (unsure if he still does) drive from London to Taunton with a car boot full of Jollibee food for people who'd ordered it. This is around a 300 mile round trip! The second person is a woman who runs a Filipino grocery store in Taunton; my mum told me a lot of Filipino nurses live in this town, and work at the big hospital there. This woman also sometimes batch cooks a lot of food for private parties, or even in her own restaurant: for example, she recently hosted a Filipino breakfast event. Apparently a lot of nurses go to her events and order her food, as it is a treat to have someone else cook food from home for you. I would like to get in touch with these people, plus potentially someone from Mamasons Dirty Ice Cream and Panadera (sister companies) who bakes the bread and makes the ice cream/curates the menu. There is a street in Kentish Town that has 4 Filipino restaurants, so I could also situate some filming or photography or interviews there.

The theme would align with "the people connecting the Filipino diaspora to home through food," and will take on a case study  and first person hybrid, potentially three case studies, illustrated with portraits and then the subject's food practice. I see a similarity with Humans of New York - a portrait, a small introductory subheading, leading into a first person case study.

The overall structure of the piece would look like:
- Heading
- Subheading
- Extended introduction with context about the Filipino diaspora numbers in the UK
- Photo of person 1
- Intro to person 1 (name, age, occupation, what they do)
- First person story of what they do and their story
- Repeat x2

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This was my first interview, I asked my mum about her experiences of moving to the UK and discovering the food culture here. I ended up cutting her out of the final piece as Thirdy's story was more specific and compelling, something unique, however my mum's experiences helped to shape my film, where she features as a character who helped me connect with my Filipino heritage through Filipino style spaghetti.

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One of the contributors feels they can represent their country/culture by cooking as their culture is not 100% accepting of them or they don't feel as at home without cooking their food. Being asked questions that are quite othering, and had their white skin is commented on and highlighted. The film also shows them cooking and talking about how they started to feel more Vietnamese after moving to New York and realising how connected to his culture he is being away from home.

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Narrative elements to consider: concept, structure, rhythm and flow, POV
Experience of the viewer - they don't know what I know

Linear narratives - example is Duane Michals 1970
Walker Evans - Vernacular America - everyday objects and environments, working class during great depression, documentary style, 1936
Eugene Smith - Life Magazine
Bill Owens
Empire of the in-between https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/amtrak-industrial-corridor.html
Cesar Dezfuli
August Sander
Karl Blossfeldt - cyanotypes and archives, large format
typologies - German photographies and beginning of conceptual art, America and Bernd and Hilla Bercher's typologies, decaying structures
Denis Daileux - people from my village, portraits (complimentary narrative)
Sophie Calle
Ana Mendieta
Lorna Simpson - using text and weekdays to explain a week's narrative of an experience
Smith and Willing - humanitarian disaster, Smith in Bhhopal
Photobooks and narratives relying on this physical/digital layout and format
https://federicamungo.com/table-for-one/

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Essay

Video

For a true picture of the United States economy, ride the train from New York to Washington and take a good, hard look out the window. Credit Credit... Pieter Hugo for The New York Times

Image

That doesn't stop both presidential candidates from constantly invoking the magnificent working-class economy we once had and can have again, if only we give them our vote. Manufacturing nostalgia is as powerful as ever. But one more look out the Amtrak window reveals something else: the shiny new buildings that are actually filled with workers have nothing to do with manufacturing. They're in the broad service sector, in the anonymous office centers that bloomed out of nowhere - near Metropark Station in New Jersey and in Claymont, Del., and Aberdeen, Md. - to hold law firms and engineering companies and I.T. firms. For people with advanced training, the service sector means an above-average wage, a below-average risk of unemployment and days sitting at a desk. For those with only a high-school degree or no degree at all, far fewer jobs are available, and the ones that are pay poorly and disappear quickly. Calling for a return to the days when everybody who was willing to put in a hard day's work could make a good living at the factory is a fantasy, maybe a lie and certainly an implicit acknowledgment that nobody has any idea what to do with the underemployed in the slums of Trenton, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Southeast D.C. It's safer to talk about Pakistan.

The contradictions along the line converge near the center, in the city that is arguably the most representative of our new and confusing economy. Wilmington, Del., has become wildly successful as the place where Wall Street and D.C. meet. In 1981, Gov. Pierre S. du Pont, who got to office, in part, because of his family's old-economy wealth, pushed through the Financial Center Development Act, which led to the state's new economic engine: regulatory arbitrage. For large financial firms, the state offers uniquely compliant rules (European politicians and economists talk, with horror, of the Delaware effect, which will inevitably lead toward ever-looser regulation). The state's Web site claims that 63 percent of Fortune 500 companies and half of all publicly traded companies are legally incorporated in Delaware - "because we provide a complete package of incorporation services including modern and flexible corporate laws . . . [and] a business-friendly state government" - and yet only two have their headquarters there: DuPont and, notably, Sallie Mae, technically a private firm but one that owes its existence and profit to government guarantees. The rest of the buildings house tens of thousands of highly paid lawyers, accountants and other specialists engaged in the arcane work of taking advantage of flexible, business-friendly corporate laws.

After all those workers return to the wealthy suburbs at the end of the day, what's left behind is one of the most dangerous cities in America, its unemployment stuck stubbornly two points above the national average. For those who live there, the future is grim. As the C.E.O. of the global outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, John Challenger, who might as well have been speaking at any point in the past 30 years, said the week before last that the recent announcement of 1,500 layoffs "may be a harbinger of things to come."

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Empire of the In-Between (Published 2012)

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Essay That doesn't stop both presidential candidates from constantly invoking the magnificent working-class economy we once had and can have again, if only we give them our vote. Manufacturing nostalgia is as powerful as ever. But one more look out the Amtrak window reveals something else: the shiny new buildings that are actually filled with workers have nothing to do with manufacturing.

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Experiment with photo (taken in Chinatown by me) - could feature a Jollibee as the illuminated subject

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Creating a narrative of
1) buying the food
2) delivering the food - mapping where and what journeys were made
3) then transition to the food shop in Taunton???

If I can't get Thirdy for a photoshoot, alternative photos can be: the shop, people buying food and waiting for it, the restaurant among British shops, a chopped up image of Leicester Square and Jollibee being a big part of it to show it's in London (or could use Masking on Lightroom, go to Leicester Square at night and edit it in a way that will show Jollibee at nighttime as the highlighted building among the other restaurants). Like the photo above.

Maybe a manipulation of the food chopped up in loads of different settings, toy cars driving along spaghetti roads, I could just buy a lot of Jollibee, or photograph a big Jollibee order

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A family or a customer or the other end who is enjoying a place/a producer of Filipino food, and telling why it is important

Having myself as the voice of the film, talking about journeys to being able to reconnect with it and how new food outlets and the general spirit of filipino food has allowed me to reconnect with heritage. Potentially in 3 parts - 1, recounting my experiences of egg fried rice at school and it being different, 2 - wanting to navigate those differences and making my own champorado and sweet spaghetti to share with my housemates and 3 - being able to go to restaurants and be reintroduced to food without going to the Philippines as I only went a few times every few years

Visual/sound style - VoiceOver and montage style, with bits of sound picked out (sounds of cooking, food

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- In 1 minute there needs to be a beginning middle and end
- Could reflect on personal experience as a very British-born but half Filipino person, story being 1. feeling different bringing egg fried rice to school, 2. wanting to reconnect with heritage food as it feels familiar but also distant and 3. finding it in London
- The story of someone with similar background to me
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https://youtu.be/rifTBp56J2c

I like that this one combines the interview with b roll and also graphics showing the journey of the chef. Incorporates smartphone footage like a video diary to illustrate some of the stories he is telling and always cuts back to the car, the location of the interview.

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TAKING FILIPINO FOOD TO NEW HEIGHTS | Sarap London Kickstarter ft. Chef Budgie Montoya

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In Thirdy's interview he talks a lot about the joy that his customers felt when receiving the food. The joy came not only from actually receiving familiar food from London, but receiving it during the pandemic! My angle now is going to focus a bit more on themes of joy, nostalgia, discovery and connection. I will discover this through..

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https://youtu.be/7m0gauuXsX4

I liked the style of this one because it mainly consists of my own narration and visually incorporates the settings in rather than speaking to camera

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I had started to write a draft with the stories of Thirdy (driver), Perl/Phillip (shop owner/her son) and my mum, to nod to the journey from London, to Taunton, to a customer in Taunton, however since my mum was not actually a customer of Thirdy's, it didn't really make sense to include her in the final piece. Elements of Perl/Phillip's stories will be included, but Thirdy's stories will centre the majority of the words peice.

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My latest (May 2022) marked-up words draft. I have now implemented these changes, which included removing unnecessary words and duplicated information, clarifying information and adding in some more written-through description of Thirdy and our video call interview to break up big chunks of text and set the scene for the reader.

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We discussed more creative photography ideas that would allow my photos to stand alone. My idea before the tutorial was to photograph portraits of Thirdy (contributor who drove Jollibee all around the UK) but without the context of the written word, they would look like a collection of portraits of a guy eating Jollibee. Laura suggested I look at other photographers' work and that I could do something like take Jolllibee food to the countryside in Somerset or even a train station elsewhere and photograph it against the English countryside background. This could also comment on diaspora and how widespread it is across the UK. I could also create some sort of map to illuminate where Thirdy went and the distances he drove, then use data to show what were the most popular items in each region. It would also be good if I could connect the story as a journey, either all way from the Jollibee to the driver who delivers it, to the person who distributes it locally and then to a family that eats it?

I will do more research on the following:
- Natalia Ga - Community Mobilities and Invisibilities
- Martin Parr
- A Feast for the Eyes
- Just Not Kosher
- https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/096746080100800302
- Laia Abril, An Abortion Project
- Sidney Mintz - Sugar and Power in Modern History
- Ingrid Pollard Photography

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The font/typeface could be more playful, represent joy, a little silly (but not too intensely) to represent how the story feels a little ridiculous and has serious themes (lockdown, isolation, feeling disconnected) yet also somewhat unbelievable with the hours of driving and happiness spread during such a largely negative time.

Concert One could be a good typeface to experiment with.

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Ken Burns effect - archival photographs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uXCMAUuZ7k

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News From Home (1977) - "Your Loving Mother"

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Part of my film will be a collection of photos with soundscapes built over the top of them as well as my narration.

For example: photos of my mum cooking whilst we hear a soundscape of chopping, the onions hissing, her speaking, opening packaging.

The linked film (Hello Fish Mate) uses photographs with moving effects, narration, text and importantly, the sound of waves to tell the story of a man who uses fishing as a way to relax and escape from the rest of the world.

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In Spring 2020, Britain's Filipino community, the largest Southeast Asian diaspora in the UK, shut their doors and kitchens for the COVID-19 lockdown. As with many diaspora communities, food is central to maintaining a connection to one another and home. This was made possible by Thirdy Ado, who drove all over England during lockdown to deliver Filipino fast food delicacies from the well-loved Pinoy restaurant, Jollibee.

Thirdy Ado has been living in London for twelve years and considers the city his home. Hailing from Masbate Island but sitting virtually with me in his Chiswick office, he tells me that he misses the warm weather, his brothers, and all Filipino food. As an international filmmaker and photographer, Thirdy's work took an unexpected turn during the 2020 lockdown.

"The story of the Jollibee is surreal, you know. During the pandemic people couldn't get out of their houses, but because I work in the media, I was allowed to travel anywhere for work. One day I decided to go to Jollibee, which is like the Filipino version of McDonald's, to pick up some food, and I posted a picture jokingly asking: 'who wants a Jollibee?' I received a lot of serious responses. It was the second month of lockdown and people were sad, desperate, and tired of their own food."

"Then I thought, 'Oh my god, maybe I can deliver Jollibee to these people?' It started with around ten people ordering from my close community, because I just wanted to make them happy. At the time I didn't have much work, so I asked for a £10 delivery fee. I had so many buckets of ChickenJoy and boxes of Jolly Spaghetti in the back of my car - it took me five hours to deliver to everyone! It was so tiring, but everybody was so happy when I arrived. I could see it in their faces: they were so thankful to be able to taste the Jollibee food again."

"When everyone posted it on social media, it went viral in the UK Filipino community - from Wales, Manchester, Somerset. Everyone wanted me to get them a Jollibee."

"I thought, no, I can't deliver food to every single house. Instead, I contacted community leaders in every town so that they could take everybody's orders and then distribute the food to everyone after I dropped it off. I'd receive a minimum of 60 orders in every town and tell Jollibee in Earl's Court what I wanted the night before. Other click-and-collect customers were fighting inside Jollibee because they saw me putting bags of food in my car non-stop."

One town that Thirdy delivered to was Taunton, Somerset. It takes around three and a half hours to drive there from London. Thirdy's distributors in Taunton were the Doel family from Ilocos Region in the north of the Philippines. Perl Doel runs Perl Oriental Food Centre with the help of her son, Phillip Doel, and is currently preparing to open a new Filipino restaurant as a result of her success as a pop-up chef and event organiser.

"We distributed food three or four times for Thirdy and it was overwhelming - so many families would come," recounted Phillip Doel when I visited his mum's shop with my own mother. "Even now our shop is very popular with the local Filipino community."

According to a report published by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Filipinos make up the largest demographic in the UK's south-east Asian diaspora. Since the 1980s, the number of Filipinos in the UK has increased by a staggering 800%, with most families or individuals moving for work following a government recruitment campaign. Many Filipinos in Taunton and Somerset work in hospitals, environments which became busier during the height of the pandemic.

"The roads were very quiet during lockdown, so I'd drive 2-4 hours each way, depending on where I was going, then I'd do it again the next morning. One time I even drove to Cornwall - when I did that, I slept in the service station, in my car, then I went straight back to Jollibee once I got to London," Thirdy recalled, sighing with his forehead in his palm. "It was so tiring, and I have back problems now, but I loved connecting with the community." His memories of this positivity lights him up again. "That's what gave me strength when I finally arrived at my destination - if you could see the faces of the kids, the photos that their parents sent me, they were so happy and wanted to order again!"

"People are crazy, I spent so many months doing my deliveries - Jollibee even gave me a 10% discount on all the food so I made a lot of money during those months, I can't believe it."

"But the money is not the only thing. I connected with other Filipinos and made people so happy. Some people were so depressed, oh my god - and the kids were so happy to have a bit of excitement during lockdown. Even when I wanted to compensate the distributors with £100, or at least some free food, they didn't even want it. They just said, 'I'm already so happy that you're doing this for the community.'"

Once we disconnect from our call, Thirdy goes to prepare for a flight to Switzerland to photograph a wedding - a familiar job far from his Jollibee delivery days, which ended once lockdown lifted in 2021. As of 2022, Jollibee has restaurants in ten UK cities, most of which opened as a result of Thirdy's deliveries demonstrating the phenomenal demand of the UK Filipino community's desire for a taste of home.

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MCCS BA Joint Honours Web Portfolio Spaghetti & Joy: How Filipino Food Connected a Community During Lockdown

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Thirdy Ado has been living in London for twelve years and considers the city his home. Hailing from Masbate Island but sitting virtually with me in his Chiswick office, he tells me that he misses the warm weather, his brothers, and all Filipino food.

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The shoot went very well and I was happy with the outcome of the shots. Instead of going to Telegraph Hill, I went to the National Gallery as it was on the way to the beach, and it is more of an iconic/interesting landmark.

During the shoot I experimented with the camera settings a lot as it was sunny and cloudy, the light kept changing and so some photos were very over exposed.

There was no outdoor seating this day at Jollibee, so instead we sat inside to get some shots, however they were not as nicely lit or visually interesting as the outdoor seating could have been. I have decided to use a close-up image of the food (taken in Jollibee) as the featured image of the site as it shows the food in detail.

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My friend Ray made this documentary-style vlog when Jollibee, which is a Filipino fast food restaurant, first opened in Earl's Court in London. Earl's Court is home to many members of the Filipino diaspora. One thing that struck me in this video was one of the short interviews that he filmed. A child said that he'd never tried Jollibee before, and his family explain that this is because "he hasn't been home." I would love to investigate how someone with Filipino family and heritage born in the UK experiences and interacts with food and culture from "home".

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Filipino Fast Food in London (Jollibee UK Opening)

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https://vimeo.com/715748057

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WORDS
- more space between the first paragraph and the first photos
- increase the line spacing in the first paragraph to 1.5 to allow more space
- rewrite the first paragraph
- I say he is from Masbate Island but I need to clarify that we are both on a video call in London
- put a hyperlink to Thirdy's photography work
- put the pull quotes in-text
- maybe put the pull-quotes to the left, to be glanced at
- Change 1st pull quote make it shorter

PHOTOGRAPHY
- I could crop the London Eye out of the two photos???
- Make the featured image more warm rather than dark/cool toned
- Sequencing of the photos makes sense

FILM
- The music may come across as just British or Western with British/colonial overtones
- However music is good and simple as it is one instrument, it doesn't interfere with my voice - the Westernness also relates to the film in that I do have a dual heritage and I am questioning if I could use Filipino music; we are also in London, so Filipino music may feel out of place for me
- I don't have to cut to the beat, I can make all the zooming in of the photos slower, linger on some of the best photos
- ending is fast so extend the outro a little bit, it's fading while I am speaking
- I should try to stabilise the shots on the handhelds!
- The narrative is clear

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I decided to make this the featured image, as the food looks very 'American' but the title mentions Filipino food. This contrast may entice an audience to keep reading.

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This image of the restaurant was chosen to highlight the absence of physical customers and showed the production of the food, which could be implied as all belonging to one of Thirdy's orders.

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This is what the webpage looked like before the cropping - the London Eye, duplicated, is the first part of the photo the viewer sees. By cropping, I bring the actual food items to the foreground and allow the viewer to interpret the location of the food a little more - some people may just see a dock and some water, some may reconise the Eye.

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Higher angle and cropped

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Originally I had cropped out the man in the left hand side, as I wanted to remove as many people as possible from the images. However, upon reflection and feedback, I decided to include him as it allows the audience to better identify the location, adds more depth, and his orange hat compliments some of the colour of the packaging.

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I cropped too much on the left hand side - in the final photo, I have allowed more space next to the spaghetti. However, my website automatically crops it a little.

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This edit cropped too much out of the left side

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I removed this photo in favour of the one focussing on the bags of food, as the people here at Jollibee don't fit with the story for Thirdy delivering the food to people who couldn't access the restaurant. The other photo highlights the staff members who would have been preparing the food during lockdown.

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I removed this image as, although I haven't got a still of the bag of food, I don't feel it contributed anything to the final piece. I like that you can see the food inside but I chose to match the shots of the open and closed hot dog packaging instead. Though, this image could suggest the travelling that the food did, they journey it took, visually it is not as compelling.

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I like that the beach and water are visible, but the composition of this doesn't feel special - the more birds-eye view of the food on the beach felt like a more compelling composition.

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I liked this one as it showed Phillip Doel, who was one of Thirdy's distributors, with my mum, however the theme of the final photos did not fit with this.

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I took these shots of my mum in between Morrison's supermarket and Perl Oriental Foods Store, to demonstrate how she feels also in between the British side of food culture, and finding some small spaces for her Filipino roots

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This collection of photos by Martin Parr shows the sociality of food, focusing on close-ups that allow the context of food (in a street, at a restaurant, being held etc.) to be highlighted. Bristol 1995.

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Mexico 2002

I like how the colours of even the salt shaker match the tablecloth and the food itself.

A comment on the Martin Parr Foundation suggests the comparison between today's Instagram food culture, purposefully setting up shots or even the creators designing their cafe or restaurant to be Instagrammable. I like that Parr takes a documentary style approach and focuses on the food here.

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This was taken in Somerset in 2000. I like again, that the focus is on the food however it shows the food's interaction with the person.

https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/martin-parrs-real-food/

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Here, I wrote out my rough voiceover and the images that I could envision accompanying it. I had a few more shots planned for my introduction but decided that too many shots would overwhelm the piece, as it is only 1 minute long, and instead opted for just the flags and a montage of photos of myself as a child with food. This was inspired by the ID film, as many talking/thinking points arose from the montage of photos. They depicted her journey through her teenage years.

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Each of these photos contains a story about whose recipe it is, the photographer's own personal relationship to it, and then a recipe of how to make it. I like the more still-life approach to these and how the words then add another layer to them - it reminds me of the Humans of New York project but for food.

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In a tutorial I talked about how I feel almost as if I have to validate my identity through the connection to food. When I visit the Philippines everyone is so keen to show me food and it feels like an assumption that I should know some of the food that there is because I am part of the family and part of the culture. What does being half or partially Filipino mean to me?

Every time I see a Filipino food outlet I get so excited and I feels so special. It reminds me of childhood and sharing and love and family. This will inspire the words I will say in my film.

Get inspiration of essay films

Write my essay draft script

Write shooting script

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More space on the left

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In my final edit I also added the 'warp stabilizer' effect so that my handheld shots were more steady. It didn't work for all of the clips, but certainly tidied some of them.

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This image is 'kneidlach'.

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Unfortunately, Thirdy, my main contributor, was not available to be photographed due to how much he had to travel for work. He was also hesitant to show his face in my project because of the potential that he would get into trouble over the deliveries. This would have been great from a journalistic perspective, to show the reader who he is, however I also take some inspiration from Martin Parr who makes the food the focus, not the maker or eater, and situates it in a way where the context can be interpreted by the viewer.

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This image is a representation of 'chopped liver & egg and onion'. I like that this is quite a playful representation of food and I could replicate this feeling with the contrast in location/food with my photos.

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I like that this project integrates still life and representational images as well as portraits; as I may not be able to photograph Thirdy himself, I can use the food itself in multiple locations to depict the journey that the food took.