Jenn Siripong Preserves Ancestral Culture Through Root and Seed

Mixed Asian Media - February 19, 2023

By Charlie Mangan

Jenn Siripong is a co-founder of Root and Seed, an organization that aims to bring together fellow tradition-seekers — to claim, honor, document, and celebrate their ancestral culture. In this Interview, Jenn and Charlie discuss how the Root and Seed’s development process, its impact on Jenn’s relationship with her Mixed-Thai Identity, as well as the importance of discussing one’s ancestral culture within mixed-family environments.

Thank you for chatting today, Jenn. Could you explain what Root and Seed is?

Root and Seed is a platform intended to help end the loss of tradition. One of the things we noticed is that so many people have incredibly rich histories, heritages, cultures, heirlooms, recipes — and they often don't realize the specialness of it until it's too late, until there's no one left to tell them the meaning behind those heirlooms or exactly how to make those recipes.

Because when you think about a family story, each family is unique, especially a mixed family. You can't go to YouTube and look up your mom's pad see ew recipe, because it’s probably quite a fusion of generations, cultures, and ingredients from multiple cupboards. You can't go and get your uncle's recording of your favorite lullaby online, because that's from your family. Your dad's immigration story isn’t found in the library. It’s only in your dad's mind. We want to help people capture all of those memories and all of that information in the voices of their loved ones so that they can celebrate their heritages, so they can have more empathy for their family members, and so they can preserve it for generations to come.

Beautiful. Could you speak about your family's background? 

I’m half Thai, and grew up in a mixed family. My mother is half French, half Irish. If you go back though, it gets more mixed and complicated. My dad, on the other hand, is Thai. When he was about 21 years old, he moved to Boston, which is where they met, had me, and raised me. Now, this area, being a very Bostonian-Irish environment, made it very hard to integrate learning the Thai language and Thai culture.

I hear you. My mom is Thai, but I grew up in PA, where there was no reason to learn Thai. Nobody spoke it.

Absolutely. There was no reason. My father really wanted to have an intergenerational home, so my grandparents lived with us, and I was raised by my Irish grandfather, my French grandmother, my mom, and my dad, and that was all I knew. Our life was completely stripped of any Asian culture. As an adult, I moved to Canada. I ended up marrying a Jewish man, and when I had children (because I'm the product of assimilation), I started raising my children as Canadian Jews. 

So then, how did the idea for Root and Seed spawn? 

I’m one half of Root and Seed. I am a co-founder with Anika Chabra. She's actually the one who had the first gem of the idea. Unfortunately, it came because she lost her mom in a weekend. Her mom was strong, she was active, and all of a sudden she was gone. And with that, so were all of the pieces of information that a matriarch is supposed to pass along. And so it left Anika with a lot of secondary losses. She lost the information about the God that she's supposed to pass down to her daughter at her daughter's wedding. She lost her mom's roti recipe. She lost a lot of those things. How do we celebrate Diwali? She doesn't know. She wanted to start a company that would help people preserve their celebrations and culture. 

With these ideas of preservation in mind, what products first emerged out of Root and Seed? 

At first we just wanted to create a repository, a bit of a family vault for people to document their ancestral information. As we did more research, we realized that a lot of people don't actually have this information. Often, they were afraid to ask the questions or didn’t know what questions to ask. So first, we created an online conversation tool. It's a mobile browser tool that provides conversation prompts and questions. 

From the tool you can record the audio of the conversation. It's not like a phone is taking a video and distracting you; it's just hit record and let the memories flow. You can upload some photos, and that conversation can be saved in a private family library. After, it can be downloaded so you can share via a private link to any of your family members who you think might appreciate that story. 

How did the product evolve over time? 

A couple of months after the web app was launched, we realized that this is great for younger generations, but the older generations wanted something physical. So, we created a conversation card set for the older generation to hold. 

My dad loves it. He just loves to hold it and look at the question. Each card has a QR code on it, and it links you directly to the question on the tool so that when you progress from question to question, your answer links to the appropriate question. And we've had fantastic feedback from it: older users love it. 

I understand that Root and Seed also has a podcast. Can you tell me about it? 

Sure. My co-founder and I started the podcast because we wanted to help spark people's realization that they had a story worth capturing, that they had a history worth trying to discover.

Season one was all about culture sparks. We had a man named Eddie; he was born in Korea, and his parents immigrated to North America. He was one of the only Korean people in his neighborhood. So he tried to assimilate himself. He rejected his parents' Korean food and learning Korean because it was just not cool. It wasn't until he went to high school and met another Korean person who spent more time in Korea and really embraced their identity that he saw the richness of his culture. That was his culture spark. We have a lot of stories like that.

Season two was all about people who honor their culture and their heritage in their life, work, and parenting style. Season three was about how people celebrate and bring their backgrounds to life, their religions to life, their cultures to life. Season four was about documenting. I love that season because people document in so many ways: through comics, through writing fiction to try to fill the gaps that they've lost over the years,through genealogy, some through oral storytelling.

How has Root and Seed’s development helped you personally better understand your lineage?

It's because of Root and Seed that I asked my dad, “What is Chinese New Year?” I used to be ashamed of this, but I was 40 years old when I first asked my father about how he celebrated different festivals when he was a child growing up in Bangkok.  

Also, I didn't know I was Chinese. I thought I was Thai. I was the proudest Thai person. It wasn't until I asked my father, “What does our name mean?” that I realized that our name doesn't mean anything. It was literally just a name he picked during immigration paperwork in order to get his passport. I was like, “Excuse me? What do you mean you picked the name Siripong? I thought you grew up with it!” And he's like, “No. We're Chinese. Your grandparents immigrated to Thailand.” This all came from asking the meaning of my last name. 

Oh my god, that’s crazy. How has Root and Seed changed your relationship with your mother’s ancestry?

I grew up with my entire mother's side of the family in Boston, so I already knew a lot of their history from stories, especially from my grandmother. She would tell the same story over and over again, so we never recorded it. My grandfather would sing the same songs over and over again. Same deal. “OK, Papa, we get it.” When you're really close to one side of your family, you take it for granted until it's lost, until Nana's not there to tell that story again or my Papa to sing… and now I'm crying. I'm sorry. 

Don’t apologize. You can take your time. 

Thank you. We didn’t record her laugh or his song... So since then, I’ve realized that the side of your family history that you take for granted equally deserves to be preserved for future generations. Just because you take it for granted doesn't mean your grandchildren will.

Thank you for sharing, Jenn. I deeply appreciate it. Honestly, I'm getting a little emotional. I think that these moments, when mixed people get emotional thinking about these things, speak to the necessity of these conversations, and how important preservation can be.

And you know what? One of the things that I love about these physical conversation cards, is that it gives permission to ask the question. It can open up the conversations you would never otherwise have. 

Root and Seed aims to help discover different facets of a family's history. I recall the website speaking about family recipes. Has Root and Seed helped uncover any family recipes?

Well, that's the thing about my Thai family’s cooking. Unlike Nana's favorite olive bread, which is an exact science, there is no recipe. I’ve tried before, I try every year at Thanksgiving. Then, I look at it a little while later and we're like, “What does three circles of oyster sauce mean?” That's not an actual measurement.

So I've learned how to replicate a lot of these flavors. You just have to be and cook with your people. If you don't put the effort in to actually immerse yourself in the process of cooking with your loved ones, a lot of us are never gonna be able to write down the recipe.

I am right there with you! My mom’s Thai, and I’ve asked her while she cooks, “How much of this, how much of that?” She always says, “I don't know. I just do it.” For me, in a Thai cooking context, it’s more experiential. So, it’s really beautiful to hear that Root and Seed encourages pursuing these experiences. Speaking of, do you have a favorite Thai dish?

Right now, my favorite is pad see ew. It was my dad's favorite dish. He always ordered it, and I never understood why. I always used to go for pad thai. Then, when I went to Thailand and my grandma made it, I understood why my dad loved it so much. Now I’m cursed. Unless I go to a really authentic Thai restaurant, the pad see ew is never what it’s supposed to be. What’s your favorite, Charlie? 

So my family's Isan Thai. There's this Isan dish called Kor Moo Yang, or grilled pork neck. It comes with this super savory sauce. It’s delicious. You gotta check it out, next time you’re in Thailand. 

Totally. And here’s the thing — when you're talking about food, you’re talking about the people in your family, where they come from. So when we preserve our recipes, we’re preserving history. 

Absolutely. What’s in store for Root and Seed’s future? 

A lot. Over the holidays, we launched the first edition of the conversation cards, just to get them in people's hands and see if they worked. We got amazing feedback, and because of that, we're launching them on Kickstarter in February. Also, Season five of the podcast is being recorded right now, and we're really excited because we have some really big names, who’ll speak about how family histories shapes their identity and intergenerational healing, among other things. 

Charles Mangan is a half Thai playwright, singer, actor, and theater-maker from Jenkintown Pennsylvania. Currently, he is teaching English and conducting Dramaturgical research in Thailand on a Fulbright Grant, where he will be until October 2023. Charlie’s full length play, Dragoness, directed by Mila Fox, premiered at Vassar College’s Powerhouse Theater in 2022 to sold-out, standing ovation audiences, and won the Molly Thacher Kazan Memorial prize for distinguished Senior Thesis Work. Charlie graduated cum laude from Vassar College in May 2022 with degrees in Drama and Neuroscience, and is also alumni of Vassar College’s Woodshed Theater Ensemble.