Meet the Alumni Author of Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen
Introduce yourself and tell us about your journey through the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa?
I came to UH Manoa in 2012 after finishing up school back home in Alaska, to start graduate school in Asian Studies. During my master’s degree, I realized how much I enjoyed research and the academic world: it was the first time I found myself really having fun in the classroom and experiencing autonomy in what I read, learned, and talked about. So, I continued on with a PhD program in the Sociology Department in 2015. In 2021, I graduated, and the following year was super fortunate to snag a position in the Sociology Department at UH Hilo, where I’ve been ever since. Over a few years, I went from a ’Bow to a Vulcan!
Is there anyone from your time at UH that has impacted your career?
So many people I met at UH Manoa during my graduate school years have been hugely influential— from professors to fellow classmates who I learned to DJ with at KTUH to my sociology friends— but three really stand out: First, Dr. David Johnson (Sociology) who was my PhD advisor and continues to be a mentor. He’s always encouraged me to think big intellectually, pursue new things, and even came up with the name for this book many, many years ago. Second are my two classmates Penn Pantumsinchai and Omar Bird. They are wonderful people, funny, and so smart. Penn, Omar, and I have a sociology-focused podcast together called, The Social Breakdown, that we created in 2017 and have had a fun time using as an excuse to get together, gab, and gossip.
What is the most rewarding part of teaching at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo?
There’s a huge amount of freedom that faculty have both inside and outside of the classroom that is just unheard of in most jobs. We’re allowed to create classes on relevant topics we are interested in; we can devise lectures and activities in ways that we find exciting; we can assign readings we have found meaning in; and so on. And I’ve been able to create courses on the sociology of food as well as music, because of this flexibility. So, one of the rewarding parts about teaching at UH Hilo is experiencing that intellectual freedom and seeing students get a kick out of it, too. Another big thing that is promoted on this campus is getting out of the classroom and doing more place-based learning. I’d never experienced this sort of teaching style in the past, so it’s been very cool to bring students to various parts of the Big Island in a big 15-passenger van to connect our reading and lectures to actual spaces. In the Spring, for instance, I took my Criminology students who were learning about the judicial system to the Hilo Courthouse to meet the Family Court judges and courthouse sheriffs. They got to talk with them and also got a tour the holding cells. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Can you explain what your new book Making It is about?
Sure! Making It is based off research that I completed in grad school. My goal, when I first design this study, was to make better sense of how we, humans, conceive of success, averageness, and failure in creative industries that also have commercial pressures. How do we judge what “success” actually looks like? I was particularly interested in averageness— or what I like to call, “mediocrity”— as many of us, myself very much included, inhabit this space of ordinariness, yet we hate to admit it! So, this book looks at how chefs and cooks judge and perceive the success-failure spectrum within their profession, and the various elements that impact it. I write about workers’ education, emotions, their bodies, and their ability to command social power in the kitchen as all big elements that determine success. And I’ve written the book for a broad audience— not just sociology nerds, like me— with the goal of it appealing to anyone interested in cooking and how the culinary industry works.
What interested you to write a book on the career paths of restaurant workers?
I’ve always thought of restaurant workers as “my people.” I grew up in restaurants. My first job was when I was 13 at a family friend’s Chinese buffet back home in Alaska, and I was hooked by the fast-paced environment and how hands-on the work was. After high school, I went to culinary school and my dream was always to open own place— something I still dream about today. Anyways, when it came to figuring out a setting to study to explore success, averageness, and failure, my mind went to cooks and chefs because of how artistic, yet cut-throat the restaurant industry can be, as well as my connection to this group of workers. I figured if I was going to spend years observing, writing about, and talking with one group of people, I wanted to have fun doing it!
Can you tell us an untold story behind the creation of the book?
Hmm, there are a many behind-the-scenes elements and memories to this book! One of the things that sticks out to me was how much traveling I did to meet up and interview the 50 chefs and cooks I talked with, and how willing everyone was to take the time out of their days to do so. I flew across the country— to New York City, Tampa, Alaska— and drove hours throughout Northern and Southern California and Arizona to sit down and have coffee with total strangers, and yet the conversations were always entertaining and insightful. Never before had I had that kind of experience, and it really solidified in me a sense that restaurant workers are one big community. Once you’ve earned your stripes in the kitchen or dining room, others recognize it and are uber welcoming.