My object story is about an object that has existed before me and my older sisters. This object is something that people cannot use properly without filling it with another object. The object that holds a special place to my family, my culture, and my story is my rice cooker. When people think of objects that represent their lives they think of objects that have sedimentary value or were passed down from generation to generation, so why is rice and my rice cooker important to my family? To begin with, I am an American born Filipino, but my parents and grandparents came from different parts of the Philippines and immigrated to a place called New Brunswick in New Jersey. Introduced to my siblings and I through our immigrant grandparents, we learned that rice played a large role in many Asian and Filipino cuisines. My rice cooker connects me to my Asian culture through cuisine and it serves as the missing piece to my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The rice cooker was a wedding gift my mother received from one of her friends. It is cream colored and has pink and blue lilac decals on its exterior. It has a holster for a rice scooper, a cord meant to be plugged into an electrical outlet, and two functions, cook mode and keep warm mode. It is a humble yet effective piece of technology that keeps my family fed. No matter a person’s background or ethnicity, rice somehow plays a role in their cuisine, and that's all thanks to the rice cooker, the unspoken hero of the household.

– Ethan White

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant