The Okinawa Memories Initiative Launches Food History Project
Master Chef Tsukayama Keiko recently traveled to Santa Cruz to work with the Okinawa Memories Initiative (OMI). Housed in The Humanities Institute, OMI is an international community history and dialogue project focusing on Okinawa and the ways its people, culture, and crises are central to understanding the world today.
In October, Chef Keiko provided three lively hands-on demonstrations of Ryukyuan dishes for students at the Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery next to the Cowell Basic Needs Cafe. Anyone visiting the coffee shop was invited to jump in for a cooking lesson and to try the many delicious Okinawan delicacies on offer. In addition to the cooking demonstrations, Chef Keiko and OMI team members traveled to Los Angeles to the Okinawa Association of America, where she presented to the Okinawan diaspora about Ryukyuan foodways.
Chef Keiko’s visit followed a trip during Spring Break 2024, recently featured in UC Santa Cruz Magazine, when ten OMI undergraduates and one graduate student traveled to Okinawa with History Professors Alan Christy and Noriko Aso. On the trip, students collaborated with the University of the Ryukyus to work on coral reef regeneration, conduct oral history interviews, cook with Chef Keiko, and visit historical Okinawan sites. Funding for the 2024 OMI trip to Okinawa was provided by the Humanities Division’s Employing Humanities grant, The Humanities Institute, and the students’ hard work during UCSC’s 2023 Giving Day. Funding for Chef Keiko’s visit to UCSC was provided by Cowell College. The trip initiated a multiyear food history project focused on Okinawa’s designation as a Blue Zone, which will be shared in an upcoming exhibition at the Cowell Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery.
For over a decade, OMI has been driven by a spirited collaboration of college students, researchers, oral historians, and artists based at UC Santa Cruz with partnerships with Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State East Bay, and the University of The Ryukyus. OMI’s groundbreaking research focuses on under-explored cultural ties that bridge the distance between Okinawa and America, by focusing on Okinawan community experiences and the history, culture, and natural vistas of Okinawa. In the last 4 years, OMI has built a close collaboration with the Okinawa Association of America (OAA) in Los Angeles, volunteering at cultural events and leading a digitization project of the OAA’s extensive archive. This evolution of the project and ongoing relationship has broadened the students’ contexts and understandings for all future Okinawa trips and led to deeper learning opportunities that span across cultures and countries.
OMI’s research approach highlights the value of community-engaged scholarship and experiential learning in a transnational setting, going far beyond the conventional structure of collecting data to produce academic papers.
As former OMI team leader and UC Santa Cruz alum Jaxon Chester explains, “undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz have life-changing experiences building community and deep relationships through the Okinawa Memories Initiative.”
Go to omi.ucsc.edu to learn more and stay up to date on the next phase of OMI’s work on the food history project by following @ucsc_omi. The team relies heavily on donations to fund their activities and programs, especially the life changing student experiential learning and research trips to Okinawa. OMI is participating in the 2024 Giving Day, and accepts donations year round via their donation page.
Banner image by Jessica Guild