I Cook therefore I am: Vietnamese Women’s Kitchen as a Site of Resistance in Taiwan

I Cook therefore I am: Vietnamese Women’s Kitchen as a Site of Resistance in Taiwan

Aiming at providing a bottom-up perspective, this paper explores how cooking acts as a source of empowerment for the female Vietnamese migrants in Taiwan to negotiate their role in the family and society. Through formal or informal, subtle or explicit channels, female Vietnamese migrants in Taiwan have been put into a powerless and vulnerable position. Yet, cooking has become an agency for them to respond, adapt and accommodate their role and identity in the host society. The eight in-depth interviews with the female Vietnamese migrants in Kaohsiung demonstrate that cooking encourages them to forge links and networks among the community and asserts their power and existence in the family. This paper argues that in the world of kitchen where the global, national and personal tastes compete with each other, cooking is being actively practiced as an act of transnational resistance. This everyday act not only links Vietnamese women with their native heritage but also infuses local preferences. Such quiet acts not only help migrants negotiate their identity but also empower them to challenge the existing power relations within the private home and the host society. Through sharing their cooking, the voice of the female Vietnamese migrants is heard, the invisible becomes visible and the powerless are empowered in the kitchen as a space of transnational encounters, struggles and egotiations.