We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Julia Nagatsu Granstrom a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Julia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
The most meaningful projects I continue to work on are my personal writing on grief and cultural foods. My dad died during lockdown from COVID and I’m mixed: my dad is white and my mom is Japanese. Because my family didn’t have a lot of money growing up, we didn’t eat out often, especially at nicer places. So the best food I ate was at home which was a mix of Japanese food and American food.
But when he died, the memories that I actually remember are when I ate—whether people fed me or my family made food ourselves. Those comfort foods are mostly Japanese: especially miso and persimmons stick out because miso soup has been a constant my entire life and my mom loves persimmons.
Everything I write about is in some way connected to that grief. Before he passed away I already started to have conversations with friends about their relationships with their cultural foods and what it looks like trying to access those foods. Families and communities are complicated, but no matter how far you are from them it doesn’t change your palate towards foods you grow up with. It’s literally a part of you and who you are now. It says a lot about your relationship with yourself. So all of this is connected.
When my dad died, I wrote poetry that I only now feel comfortable releasing. I’m collaborating with artist friends because food is so visual and I want that element accompanying my work.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I have always been a voracious reader. Storytelling is a big part of who I am.
My dad worked for a seafood company and my mom grew up on a dairy farm in Hokkaido, Japan. We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but because of their backgrounds, we did have an appreciation of where food comes from, especially food that grows local to the PNW such as salmon, Dungeness crab, and blackberries. We’d pick blackberries for cereal, pie, and cobblers with occasionally access to quality seafood from my dad’s work.
This is why I write personal essays and articles with a heavy bent toward community food spaces: the growers, the fishermen, the restauranteurs around the Pacific Northwest area. I love interviewing people sitting at intersections in those worlds to ask questions such as: How do we make sure food is accessible? What are the ethics of how we eat? How do we make sure people are compensated in a sustainable way? How do we source our produce/meat and respect the land? Whose cultures are we drawing from and what is our connection? How does that connection change over time? Essentially, how do we respect this food on our plate and where it’s coming from?
I’m most proud of going out for projects I want to be a part of and creating opportunities for myself and others. And that’s a function of being more grounded and less self-conscious about my writing abilities.
I lived in LA for a couple years and applied to writing fellowships. One of the parts that was harder was this constant drive to please other people, which makes sense because in film there are so many people you have to win over to get something made. You need an entire team at your back and in an industry event, you’ve got to impress the highest ranking connection in the room. If you impress someone then maybe you’ll get your career made.
That’s not how I work.
What sets me apart is my ability to slow down, sit with someone, and listen with compassion to ask questions informed by my experience as someone constantly stepping into other worlds. I want potential clients or interviewees to know that I want to understand them. I’m rooting for them, especially for stories we don’t hear often about minority spaces.
As for my own stories, I am grateful that people feel seen by what I write. That is probably one of the most rewarding sides of this.
For anyone I’m working with my goal is for people to be more intentional about how they interact with the world, especially with how they eat. You really do vote with your dollar and eating is a necessity of living. If you can be more conscious of what you eat and why, that goes a long way toward making choices that ultimately impact your community, culture, and the land that we’re living on.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
The lesson I had to unlearn was that I had to be perfect in order to be worthy of getting what I want and the truth is that I had to stop grappling with perfectionism all the fucking time because it was exhausting to not try. Perfectionism made it hard to figure out where I find joy. It delayed me from putting my writing out there and trying something new. The backstory is that I’m the oldest daughter in an immigrant family who took care of a lot of people. There wasn’t a lot of time, grace, or money to do anything else but internalize when things did not go according to plan.
I am so grateful for the support systems I’ve built, the therapy my insurance has covered, and the community of people who believe and encourage me to go out for opportunities I couldn’t have imagined.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Society can invest money, time, and support into artists and creatives (including chefs here). Put your money where your mouth is.
If you see an artist you like, tag them and their work on social. Share with your friends about a creative you like. Grab a group of friends, have a meal at a local small restaurant, and then see their short film in festival. For institutions, give resources so they can know what language to use to apply for grants and fellowships. When you don’t come from an upper class, white background, it’s challenging to figure out what these questions are asking and how to answer.
It’s really tough out here when you’re making a career for yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.grindstonewriting.com
- Instagram: grindstonewriting
Image Credits
Jess Barnard
Tatyana Monzon
Gai