Food is a universal language: Our first language | Yia Vang | TEDxMinneapolis

Key Concepts

• Food as a Universal Language: The central thesis, arguing that food transcends verbal communication to convey emotion, memory, identity, and foster understanding.
• Identity and Heritage: The journey of embracing Hmong identity, initially suppressed, and honoring the refugee experience of parents.
• Resilience and Sacrifice: The profound impact of parents' survival, sacrifices, and quiet strength on the speaker's life and culinary philosophy.
• The Lens of the Kitchen: A metaphorical framework for understanding life's pressures, timing, and reactions through the process of cooking.
• Connection and Understanding: How food acts as a catalyst for cultivating relationships, bridging cultural divides, and understanding people's stories.
• Legacy: The idea that true success is measured by the enduring impact and stories passed down through generations, embodied in food.

A Story of Survival and Identity The speaker, Yavang, was born in 1984 in the Ban Vinai refugee camp in Thailand. He recounts a sobering statistic shared by a doctor who worked at the camp: "one and out of three babies that were born in that camp in Veni didn't make it past their second birthday." His parents spent 10 years in the camp, where they had three children. Against these odds, the family survived and immigrated to America in 1987. This fact profoundly shapes his identity and actions. Having studied communications at W Lacrosse, he emphasizes that "you cannot not communicate," as communication is constant, embedded in our bodies and DNA.

Food as the Universal Language Growing up, Yavang learned Hmong at home and English at school, becoming bilingual. However, he later realized his family spoke another, unrecognized language: food. He posits, "What if the most powerful universal language isn't spoken? What if it's not even verbal? What if it's food?" He asserts that "Food holds meaning. It carries emotion, memories, and identity. It tells stories without using words." For him, food is the language he speaks best. He identifies himself as a proud son of Hmong Refugees, founder of Union Monk Kitchen, and owner/chef at Vi, where the food tells their story.

The Lens of the Kitchen: Life Lessons Through Cooking As a cook, Yavang views the world "through the eyes of the kitchen." He learns about life, timing, and pressure from cooking. He illustrates this with the analogy of grilling a steak:

1. Hot Pan & Sizzle: A super hot pan and the immediate "sizzle" when the steak is laid down are crucial. "If you don't hear it, you got problems."
2. Light Pressure & Maillard Reaction: Applying light pressure (not too hard) creates a "beautiful reaction that happens between the sugars and the amino acids," resulting in a delicious, rich sear.
3. Too Much Pressure/Time: Pushing too hard or letting it sit too long causes it to burn and become bitter. This process serves as a metaphor for life: "Pressure can bring you the best things out... you got to know when to lean away, lean in everything." He calls this perspective "the lens of the kitchen," where food becomes the "vernacular" – a common language of flavors, rhythm, and understanding that transcends spoken words and brings people together.

Reclaiming Identity and Honoring Heritage Yavang shares his childhood struggle to fit in, feeling embarrassed about speaking Hmong. He learned English by emulating talk show hosts and sitcom characters in the mirror, striving to eliminate any accent. He recalls a moment of perceived success when his cousin mistook him for a "white guy" on the phone. However, he later realized that in his effort to fit in, he was "running so hard away and so fast... that I was actually leaving my Mong identity behind me." Meanwhile, his parents "stood strong and rooted," quietly preserving their language, traditions, and values. He now recognizes their "quiet strength," realizing they "just lived it," their journey from war to refugee camp to America being its "own kind of hero's journey." He now actively seeks to tell their story through his food, seeing every dish as "a quiet thank you to my parents, a way to honor where I come from and the strength that was passed on to me."

The Power of Food to Connect and Communicate Love Yavang highlights how food fosters connection:

• Collaboration Dinners: Chefs from diverse backgrounds, farmers, shrimpers, and fishermen, despite speaking different verbal languages, "knew what to do" around food, speaking "the language of food."
• "Mother's Love": He recounts asking a friend about his favorite childhood dish, who, with a sense of shame, mentioned "hot dogs and mac and cheese." Yavang reframed it as "a mother's love. A single mother on a Friday night, doing her best, giving everything she can so her children can have some."
• Parents' Hands: He realized that every dish his parents made was crafted by their hands, connected to their arms, body, heart, and soul, conveying a message of profound love and sacrifice: "We went through war. We sacrificed so that you can have a hope of a future. And we would do it all again."
• Mother's Egg Rolls: His mother, unable to speak much English to her grandkids, expresses her love through food. When her grandson Lukey asked for egg rolls, she made "a hundred egg rolls," demonstrating, "My love for you is big and strong... I love you a 100 egg rolls."

Building Bridges: Cross-Cultural Connections Through Food Yavang illustrates food's power to bridge cultures through his restaurant, Vi, located across the street from Oro, an award-winning Mexican restaurant run by his friend, Chef Gustavo Romero. Both are "immigrant kids" from different parts of the world (Thailand and Mexico) who found a "common language: food." They discuss their respective cuisines – mole and curry, tortillas and purple sticky rice – understanding each other despite language barriers. When both restaurants made the New York Times list, they shared an emotional moment, realizing that people were hearing their stories through their food.

Food as a Catalyst for Understanding and Legacy Yavang emphasizes that "Every dish has a story. And if you follow that story long enough and close enough, you get to the people behind the food. And once you're there, it's actually not about food. It's about people." He sees food as a "catalyst into cultivating great relationships" and "the doorway to understanding, to connect to each other." He believes that to truly know people, "it has to start with their food." He defines success not by awards or headlines, but by "a legacy. What you leave behind, the echo that is heard for many generations to come."

A Mother's Prophecy and the Fulfillment of a Promise A few years ago, when Yavang was a James Beard finalist, his sister explained the award to their mother. His mother then called him, sharing a deeply personal story. In the Ban Vinai refugee camp, she was so poor and witnessed so much death that she prayed to God for mercy, wishing to die. One morning, a voice in her heart told her, "You have to survive. You have to be strong because you don't know it yet, but your children is going to change the world and I need you to take this pain and be strong and move forward." She told Yavang that hearing about the James Beard award fulfilled that promise, almost 50 years later. He states that when people eat at Vi, partaking in dishes made from his parents' hands and ingredients from their farm (like the peppers in their pepper sauce), they "partake in that story."

Call to Action: Embracing the Language of Food Yavang concludes by stating that one doesn't need to be a chef or even a good cook to speak the language of food. His simple request is: "When you eat, be quiet for a moment. Be curious and let the food do the talking because food can tell a story." He encourages people to ask, "Where does this food come from?" He highlights that his parents cooked with humble, locally sourced ingredients like taro, yuca, banana leaves, Hmong mustard greens, and Hmong cucumbers, connecting with people through shared experiences of working hard and making the most of what's available. Food, he reiterates, "doesn't just feed us. It connects us. It opens the door to someone's story."

Conclusion: The Enduring Message Yavang identifies himself as "a child of strength, raised by sacrifice, by resilience, and taught a language that can be served on a plate." Food is the language his parents passed down, a "bridge" between generations, strangers, the past, and the future. He believes that in today's world, the language of food might be the most important one we can use to speak to each other.