History Bearing Fruit to the Present - Kyle Tsukahira
Kyle Tsukahira is the Co-Director of Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement (APIFM) based in Los Angeles, CA. In this episode, Kyle shares his journey into food justice work, starting with a memory of foods that remind him of home. Kyle tells us about his lineage and the ancestors that brought agricultural practices from the East and adapted them in western soil, passing down knowledge from one generation to the next. Through their Food Roots program, APIFM partners with local Asian American farmers and other farmers of color growing culturally relevant food, and supports food distribution to local businesses and communities. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Food Roots program has worked to provide over 180,000 lbs of fresh produce and over 150,000 eggs to thousands of families in need across Los Angeles County.
This episode of In Praxis is a part of Season 3: Food Justice.
The information, opinions, views, and conclusions proposed in this episode are those of our podcast guests.
You can also tune into this episode on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. You can also watch this episode on YouTube with subtitles for accessibility.
Kyle Tsukahira
Podcast Transcription
Kyle Tsukahira 00:00
There are these traditional practices that are going to be so vital, especially if we're talking about culturally relevant produce. The farming population is aging in this country. And it's like we need those folks, the older generation, to pass down the knowledge of how these crops are grown; how to attend to them; how to take care of them; how to farm; how to continue to sustain this type of work.
Podcast Intro 00:23
You're now listening to In Praxis, a podcast from The Praxis Project created to support, hear from, and uplift the stories coming out of the ecosystem of basebuilding organizing. An ecosystem that uses frontline groups building community power and the folks who help support their important work. In season three, our host Blair Franklin is exploring community driven strategies for food justice. Our guest are incredible community organizers working to advance fair farming practices, community led urban farming, and equitable food procurement and retail. These are their stories about how we feed our communities with healthy, culturally appropriate, fair, and affordable food and build community power to advance health equity through food justice.
Blair Franklin 01:47
Well, thanks so much for being with us today, Kyle. Yeah, really, really appreciate it. And just wanted you to take a moment to introduce yourself to the folks listening to the podcast. And really tell us a little bit more about who you are and the work that you do with the Asian Pacific Islander Ford movement.
Kyle Tsukahira 02:04
Sure, my name is Kyle Tuskahira. I am a Program Manager at a nonprofit organization called Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement. We're a community based organization located in Los Angeles, California. We do a lot of work around environmental and food justice, specifically within the Asian Pacific Islander community here in LA.
Blair Franklin 02:31
Great. And so yeah, just really curious. What got you started in doing food justice work, kind of what's your food story? And how do you get into doing the work that you currently are doing with your organization?
Kyle Tsukahira 02:44
Yeah, I guess when I think back on it, it really links to growing up. I remember growing up and running around at my grandmother's place, she had this really beautiful piece of land up in the hills right outside of downtown LA. Where they were growing everything from persimmons, to lemons, to avocados, you know, all kinds of amazing fruit trees. It really was like an oasis in many ways. So being able to kind of grow up in that I just, you take it for granted, right. And it wasn't until much later that I realized what a privilege that was to have access to food to be able to pick things right off the tree and enjoy it. I've never— I still haven't found anything that tastes like, you know, the blood oranges, or the pomegranates are the persimmons that, that were at my grandmother's place. And I think you know, over the years, you kind of get disconnected to that. Where food comes from, you know, how it's grown, how it's supposed to taste even. And so I think when I look back on it, that was really my introduction to what it means to to take care of the land to grow your own food to be connected to that. And I think over the years just kind of slowly got disconnected or forgot about that. And through this work, I've had an opportunity to really reconnect to those values
Blair Franklin 04:15
Yeah, so thank you so much Kyle for that share. And just like that beautiful reflection of growing up in downtown LA and your grandmother and just like the the taste of the blood oranges and persimmons. Yeah, just really painted a really beautiful picture. I think of just yeah—what youth was like for you and what that connection to the land was and how it kind of coming back to that connection to land now. So I'm curious, you know, when you first started doing community work, maybe you know, before or during your time, currently with Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement, what are the foods landscape look like? How did it shift as you got older and what is the food landscape look like now in relation to your work?
Kyle Tsukahira 04:58
Sure. So When I first started, at Asian Pacific Islander forward movement back in 2012. At that time I think the food landscape, at least in the area in Los Angeles and the communities that we were working in, it was— it's a mixed landscape. LA is such a huge area, there's so many different communities. There's certainly communities that lack access to fresh, affordable, and most importantly culturally relevant produce. So, I think one of the key things was that we saw that there was this lack of access, and we wanted to figure out what can we do to address it. One of the first things that we did was, we started looking at what's called Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, and just kind of trying to learn from the model. Right, it's been around for many years in the US, at least since the 1970s. Basically, it consists of a community of individuals who come together to financially support a farm or farms, usually small, local farms. We wanted to figure out how do we take this model and try something, try to implement something in the communities that we're working in. From that we started to run a program. Where we started building up relationships with local, primarily Asian American farmers, and purchase produce from them at the end of their market. Because otherwise, they would have to take that produce back with them to the farm and either compost it or try to store it for next time that they came down. So we were able to get a little bit of a discounted rate. Then just start to recruit people to see if anyone was interested in trying this model out. We started with a super small group of people, just maybe like a handful, 10 people with this program. From that the program really grew and expanded over the years. At one point, we had well over 150 CSA subscribers spread out across multiple regions in LA County, and even some down in Orange County. But I think, you know, one of the key things that we saw was that, you know, there's actually a lot of different types of CSA programs in LA. But one of the major issues was that these programs weren't focused on culturally relevant produce for our communities. And that was a huge gap and it's something that we really wanted to figure out how to fill. Because it's important it's important for folks to be able to eat foods that are familiar to them, that remind them of home, that have that special connection. And they're integral to a lot of the cuisine that our communities eat. So to be able to find farmers that specialize in growing these culturally relevant produce items and being able to distribute that to people. That was really important to us.
Blair Franklin 07:58
Yeah, that's powerful! Yeah, thank you. I think multiple times you kind of kept bringing us back to—through community support agriculture, through the work with Asian American farmers really understanding and making sure that the food that's being provided and to community is culturally relevant. Right. And you brought that up multiple times. Just thank you for centering us in that. So then, I think kind of coming off of that. I'm curious around, I guess, two questions. One, thinking about that kind of framing around cultural relevance of food. What, if any, do you think the impact of like colonialism, imperialism on food and food access? How that's been for Asian American folks, API folks? And then what's the relationship to food and medicine or healing? And how does your work promote healing through food justice?
Kyle Tsukahira 08:51
Yeah, maybe we might need to circle back to that second part.
Blair Franklin 08:54
Totally. Got you!
Kyle Tsukahira 08:56
In regards to the first question, I think, you know, there are so many different connections, just speaking from personal experience or family experience. I'm Japanese American, fourth generation. My grandparents were actually incarcerated in the concentration camps during World War II here in America. So over 120,000, Japanese and Japanese Americans were incarcerated during the war following executive order 9066. So my family went to first to the Santa Anita racetrack, which was a staging area, and then they were sent to Hart Mountain, Wyoming, which is one of the 10 concentration camps that were located throughout the United States. But specifically in relation to agriculture so many Japanese immigrants that initially came over, including my great grandparents, in the late 1800s they initially got into agriculture. My family actually had a farm out in Riverside, California and we're farming out there for a while. A lot of these agricultural practices were passed down within families from generation to generation. So when people were sent to these really desolate locations in these camps, you know, a lot of people thought that nothing can really be grown out there. But many of the Japanese incarcerees actually were able to utilize practices. Whether it was irrigation or other farming methods to cultivate food and crops in these really desolate areas. I think that definitely has a significant connection. For me, and just in terms of my my family's experience. My grandfather was a landscaper. A lot of people in the Japanese American community also did a lot of the yard work or maintaining landscapes gardening work etc both prior to and after World War II. After they returned from these camps I think that also holds a special connection for many people in the community. Beyond that, I think another thing that just in terms of history, is really looking at how Asian Americans have contributed so much in terms of moving forward, whether it's labor, whether it's in regards to agriculture. One of the key things, the monumental things that happened was the Delano grape farmer strike and a lot of times the focus goes to Cesar Chavez and the organizing of Mexican, Mexican American farmers. But oftentimes, what gets left out of the conversation is the contributions of Larry Itliong and the Filipino, Filipino American farmworkers, who really were at the forefront of the movement in organizing farm workers in collaboration with Cesar Chavez. They created the United Farm Workers organization to really come together and advocate for the needs farm workers. So I think like, these are just a couple examples of how it ties into some historical things that have happened within the Asian American community, specifically, and agriculture.
Blair Franklin 12:38
Wow, awesome! That was an entire history lesson that I think it's just so important for folks to sit with and reflect on. So thank you so much for just the depth of what you shared for talking about your grandparents experience and concentration camps what that meant for your family. The reconnection to land and turning the land that they were in into producing soil, right, that can really contribute to, to agriculture. Then also just the organizing and solidarity sort of across different communities, that kind of naming Filipino organizers really involved the work that Cesar Chavez was doing, and the United Farm Workers organization kind of being birthed from that. So yeah, that was beautiful. Thank you for that historical context and again placing us in that way. And so kind of following that, but it's engagement look like with community through your work? And as you kind of work to directly address needs and access community and help build community power.
Kyle Tsukahira 13:44
Yeah, for us, I think engagement takes a lot of different forms. Some ways that we've worked to engage folks is through our Food Roots program and it's really a program that started with the CSA work that I was talking about before. Since then, has really evolved over the years to provide some context. As I mentioned, we ran that CSA program I think one of the challenges that we ran into with the program was figuring out how to make it sustainable. One of the things was that are the goals for the program was really like how do we ensure that we are increasing access and affordability for culturally relevant produce. One of the challenges with that was, the program was really reliant on grant funding to support and sustain it and to make it affordable. As funding opportunities either ended or were no longer available, it became really difficult to sustain the program and to make sure that it was continued to be affordable. So at that point, we kind of had to shift gears a little bit and look to other models that that might be able to help sustain the work. Then that's when we really shifted more to a food hub model, which basically what we were doing, and what a lot of like, you know, both nonprofit and for-profit groups do is aggregate locally grown produce from local farmers and distribute it to community institutions. So, for us, we were able to build relationships with local restaurants, hospitals, schools, nonprofits, etc and source produce more on a wholesale level. The goal then became, how do we generate revenue from this social enterprise model and reinvest those any kind of profit that's generated into our nonprofit work. So that's kind of how the program has shifted. Another thing I wanted to share just due to the pandemic, we saw that there was a huge need for food. You know, a lot of people were struggling with job loss with even just put food on the table for their families. A lot of people were getting support maybe from their local food bank, or whatnot. But a lot of the items they're receiving are canned goods, non perishables, pre-prepared food items. And so what we wanted to do was figure out ways to supplement those items people were getting and incorporate fresh culturally relevant produce, and also eggs. So people could supplement their diets, it's not healthy just to be eating canned food. So that's kind of where we came full circle. Most recently, when the pandemic started back to this CSA model, except that we were fundraising, we were getting, you know, applying for grant funding to be able to provide these food bags for free for people who were really struggling to put food on the table. So those are some of the ways that we've engaged in terms of like, I guess, on the food distribution side, you know, trying to meet emergency needs. But in other ways, we've had our team, really working to engage communities at the local level. In terms of providing nutrition education, healthy cooking, community gardening workshops, and building community in that way, as well. So people can learn the skills, develop the skills they need, and bring it back to their communities. So I think those would be a couple examples I would share. Definitely trying to continue to think of new and creative ways to expand on this in the future.
Blair Franklin 17:33
Yeah, wow! Yeah, everything you shared are so rich. Just thinking about all the ways that you're engaging community, through the CSA work through, they're really kind of thinking about the social enterprise model and moving toward the food hub, providing direct food, access the education aspects just yet, it's a lot. And I think you and what you should also really focus rather than it based on other conversations around some of the greatest barriers that come up, and that directly work with community. Particularly, as it relates to being reliant on on grant funding and needing to kind of shift and think about other ways to make the program more sustainable. And also the pandemic, right. And just like how the need for food became so much more stark and so much more clear, in the face of the pandemic. And the ways in which both like Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement and other organizations really responded to that to meet that need. Other other kind of big barriers you experienced to your work? And if there are other ones you want to name? Yeah, you can share those and how you overcame them.
Kyle Tsukahira 18:36
Yeah, I think one thing I wanted to highlight, specifically, because I have been talking a lot about, like Asian Americans is the other part of our name. Which is because we are Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement and I do want to highlight the importance of of naming and highlighting both of these communities. Both Asian Americans and Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders. Politically speaking, the term came about to build solidarity to have a stronger political voice and presence in this country. But the Asian Pacific Islander community is extremely diverse. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of different ethnic groups within the API umbrella, all with their own unique histories, experiences, cultures, languages, etc. Although it's a powerful way to, politically speaking come together. I think it is also important to highlight the unique challenges and barriers that different groups face. So in specifically in regards to food, people on our team, have really built out a lot of the work that we're doing specifically with the Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander community here in Los Angeles. An important part of that was to ensure that we bring on Pacific Islander staff members that were engaging meaningfully with Pacific Islander communities, because again, there's different needs right in the community, whether that's different produce items that people like to consume different ways of organizing and engaging with community members, different priorities, right? That communities have even the varying geographic locations of where all of our communities are located within, you know, LA County. And so I just wanted to, to name that as well, and highlight the importance of the API term, but also the importance of really looking at the individual communities. One example for that is in data. One of the reasons our organization first started is because we began to see a really concerning trend of increasing rates of diseases within the AAPI community. And when you look at the data, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander communities experience obesity related diseases at much higher rates than Asian American community members. It's important to make that distinction as well and highlight those issues and address them. Also to really look at how do we disaggregate our data that's coming out whether it's about health, whether it's about food access, because when we look at individual communities, we see the disparities that exist within the Asian Pacific Islander umbrella. So yeah, I just wanted to also like highlight that aspect of the work and the importance of that as well.
Blair Franklin 21:38
Yeah, thank you for really deeply valuing, consistent, bringing us to history and technology and context. Ensuring that we know the diversity within those terms that we use to move political strategy forward and to be more powerful politically, right. And just the diversity within the folks we name and the terms we use. It's really important. And so how do you measure success? What a success look like in your work?
Kyle Tsukahira 22:08
Yeah, I mean, I think we look at it in a lot of different ways. It just, I guess, in terms of numbers, we look at it, oftentimes, and just the amount of financial support we're able to provide for a lot of the small both Asian American, Latinx farmers that we work with. In 2020, alone beginning really when the stay at home orders were issued in LA County, which was really mid March, and then looking all the way until the end of the year. Thanks to again like fundraising people who supported grants, you know, different philanthropic funds that came in, we were able to source over $100,000 worth of agricultural products from our network of farmers, and give it out to community members. So I think that's a huge thing, you know, especially being able to provide that revenue source for a lot of these small farmers during a really difficult time when restaurants shut down and people weren't sourcing as much produce. I think that is really important. Also, looking at it in terms of relationships and people a lot of our community health educators, and organizers have been doing this work for many, many years. And whether that's through again, the nutrition ed classes, the healthy cooking classes, etc. They've built up these amazing and really strong relationships with community members. One colleague, specifically has been organizing with Chinese elders in Chinatown and has really developed these amazing relationships. Where the elders come to her for not just to learn about nutrition, but for other issues that may be impacting their lives, whether that's to help with translating something that they don't understand. Maybe they're struggling with rent. So it's like figuring out ways that we can collaborate with other organizations to support, you know, the people that we've developed these relationships with. Even continuing to run programs throughout the pandemic to provide food assistance to these folks that have attended workshops and have engaged with the organization in the past. So I think that's another way to look at it as seeing these relationships that have developed and grown and are held with the organizer with the staff with the community, I think is a really beautiful thing too.
Blair Franklin 24:34
If you had unlimited resource, I think he talked about kind of resources in multiple ways. Just now you talked about finances. You talked about relationship as a resource. You know, food like land could be a resource to be had unlimited resources, what would you do to increase your impact?
Kyle Tsukahira 24:51
That's a great question. One thing that comes to mind and this is really, I think location specific because we do work in LA County is, if there was unlimited resources it would be great to really figure out a way to bring all of the different groups that are doing work around food access, or food systems work in LA together. There's so many different nonprofit orgs, charitable orgs, even government orgs, that are all doing this work. But it can be very siloed, you know, where everyone's kind of focused on their own thing. And it would be great to see like, in terms of building a coalition in LA, of how all of our groups can come together. How we can collaborate, learn from one another, make sure that there's not too much duplication of efforts, right, that we're using the best making the most of the resources that are available. But also, I think that there's a way to really improve and activate the local food system. You know, we know that there's just 1000s and 1000s of pounds of food that's going to waste going straight into the landfill. And so how do we engage in that process? So one example is, we're a smaller organization. And over the years, that we've been running this food work, we've had to invest in different infrastructure and supplies and equipment, whether that's refrigerated cargo vans, dollies, other equipment that's needed to run these types of programs. But I think it would be really cool if there was maybe a handful of food hubs that were established, that could have hold storage that could have a fleet of refrigerated vehicles, forklifts, etc. So that small nonprofits don't have to invest resources in these things. It could be shared by many different nonprofits. And we could use those resources to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our specific communities, and also pulling in the power of the food system, whether that's to get donated, cleaned, recovered foods, whether that's purchasing foods from local farmers of color, there's just so many opportunities there that can really be activated if there was that unlimited supply of resources and funding.
Blair Franklin 27:21
Yeah, totally. All the potential devotes community power through that by —yeah, just like having folks really come together to move forward policy to move forward access around the storage spaces for food hubs, as you mentioned. And yeah, just that's beautiful. I wish you all of that in your work in LA, I think that would be beautiful. What's one piece of advice you feel like you'd give to someone thinking about starting an initiative similar to the work that you're doing with Asia Pacific Islander Forward Movement?
Kyle Tsukahira 27:55
Honestly, I would say, Just do it. You know, it might be simple as that it doesn't have to be anything massive. I know, we were just talking about some massive level food scale policy, infrastructure things. But it really doesn't have to be that. I mean, like I said, we started super small, with a handful of subscribers, and literally going to the farmers market at the end of the day to pick up some produce. It could be as simple as that. And sometimes, and oftentimes, I would say, those local level changes at work is really the most impactful. And that's something that we have really strived to keep in mind and to focus on is how do we create local level change for the communities that we're working in. So it could be something as small as just starting a community garden or starting a compost bin or gathering some resources and foods together to donate to families in need. It really doesn't have to be a massive operation. One other thing I really would like to highlight is the farmer aspect of this conversation. We need people to get involved in the production of food. In the past we've done some organizing work primarily was Hmong farmers, so Southeast Asian farmers in California. It's really challenging for small farmers not only to make a living but to sustain the work. One of my friends who I worked with in the past he—his family had a farm in Fresno, California. And just because of the grueling nature of the work, having to plant to grow to harvest than to drive hours and hours from the farm to either The Bay or LA to sell is really brutal work and it's not sustainable from a health perspective. I know he shared with me that his father unfortunately just passed away because of just the stress and the labor from the farm. He went back to the farm to try to help his family out, you know, and running the business, and they kept it going strong for a couple years. But ultimately it was, it wasn't sustainable to continue it, he saw his mom and his brother's health deteriorating. And at that point, they made the call, they're like, it's not worth dying over this to keep this going. And so I think it is, it's really challenging, especially for small farmers. The concern with that is how do we ensure that we are supporting young up and coming folks that want to get involved in agriculture? How do we make sure that it is sustainable, that they're able to make a living, provide for their families, while doing this work? There's so many barriers, but in general, this isn't just true for Asian American farmers. But farmers in general, the farming population is aging in this country. There's less people that are going into agriculture. And, you know, I don't blame them, I know that I would not be able to do that type of work. You know, it's just back breaking work. We need to sustain the work of especially small farmers of color, because there are these traditional practices that are going to be so vital, especially for talking about culturally relevant produce. It's like we need those folks, the older generation, to pass down the knowledge of how these crops are grown, how to attend to them, how to take care of them, and how to farm how to continue to sustain this type of work.
Blair Franklin 31:26
Yeah, it's really reflecting on both starting small getting out there and just doing it and the deep, deep, deep need for folks to enter agriculture as a field and just for the sustaining farmers of color, and API farmers. That's incredible. Well, thank you so much, Kyle, I think just like everything you shared, I think is just so critical to really think about the ways in which all of us can center food justice and center food sovereignty in our work. And what it means for Asian Pacific Islander communities to get just really be doing so much towards this greater movement toward food justice. So thank you again, for your contributions. And thank you to a thanks to Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement for all the work that you all and the incredible farmers and communities are doing and talk soon, until next time.
Kyle Tsukahira 32:19
Yeah, thank you for taking the time and I'm excited for the opportunity to share. I just— I wish that I could cover everything because those are just small snippets. You know, there's so many pieces that are so interconnected and and also just connected to other communities of color. You know what I mean? Like shared experiences and things that bring us together. Appreciate the time and excited to see the series.
Podcast Outro 32:57
Thank you for listening to this episode of In Praxis. We hope you all enjoyed it. Make sure to visit our website, www.thepraxisproject.org where you can check out additional episodes with other guests, as well as learn more about our work.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
community, food, Asian Pacific Islander, people, farmers, grown, culturally relevant, agriculture, produce, csa, small farmers, organizing, relationships, organization