In the memoir Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner writes a deeply personal narrative about her period of mourning following her mother’s cancer diagnosis. As a biracial Korean American individual with a Korean mother and a White American father, Zauner grapples with the challenge of feeling assimilated into both Korean and American culture. Here, H Mart—the largest U.S.-based grocery store chain catering to Asian-American customers—serves as the metonymy through which Zauner reconnects with her Korean heritage. Zauner describes H Mart as a sacred site, unsullied by the judgmental and unfriendly atmosphere of the city centre, and a place where diasporic individuals can reconnect with their roots and seek refuge. For Zauner, H Mart is one of the few liminal spaces in which she is not compelled to be fully Korean nor fully American; she can exist in all her complicated totality, along with others who also feel lost and confused, and be momentarily reprieved from the relentless push to fit into a certain category.

As is often commonly seen in immigrant narratives, food is central to Zauner’s ruminations of identity and family. Throughout the memoir, Zauner writes about Korean food in tantalizing and exquisite detail. The native depth with which she recounts her mother’s Korean dishes reveals the strength of her connection to Korean food. She is meticulous in naming specific Korean ingredients, transliterating them, dwelling on the Korean-ness of the food, and expressing great enthusiasm for the myriad of Korean dishes she describes. Through this, we witness how Korean food is a form of language and an expression of love with which Zauner explores her multicultural, multifaceted, and multilingual identity. In this way, the language of food becomes another lingua that Zauner deftly uses with skill as she expresses fluency in three languages: English, Korean, and the language of Korean food.

Zauner’s moving introspection on her mother-daughter relationship and her complicated grasp of identity as a hyphenated American encourages us, as readers, to also examine our relationships with food and cultural relations. In the twenty-first century, the scope of globalization has given food a new dimension as a cross-cultural phenomenon. We are frequently exposed to new ingredients, new dishes, and new cuisines through social media. After reading this memoir, perhaps we can ruminate on how a spectrum of food-tongues is crucial to establishing a truly diverse society.

2024년 다양성 관련 도서 추천사 우수작, 영어영문학과 정현경 학생</p