Dirty Kitchen

A Memoir of Food and Family

By: Jill Damatac

Narrated by: Jill Damatac

In the style of Crying in H Mart and Minor Feelings, filmmaker Jill Damatac blends memoir, food writing, and colonial history as she cooks her way through recipes from her native-born Philippines and shares stories of her undocumented family in America.

Jill Damatac left the United States in 2015 after living there as an undocumented immigrant with her family for twenty-two years. America was the only home she knew, where invisibility had become her identity and where poverty, domestic violence, ill health, and xenophobia were everyday experiences.

First traveling to her native Philippines, Damatac eventually settled in London, England, where she was free to pursue an education at the University of Cambridge, fully investigate her roots, and process what happened to her and her family. After nine years, she was granted British citizenship, and returned to the United States, for the first time without fear of deportation or retribution.

Damatac weaves together forgotten colonial history and long-buried Indigenous tradition, taking us through her time in America, and cooking her way through Filipino recipes in her kitchen as she searches for a sense of self and renewed possibility. With emotional intelligence, clarity, and grace, Dirty Kitchen explores fractured memories to ask questions of identity, colonialism, immigration, and belonging, and to find ways in which the ritual, tradition, and comfort of food can answer them.

Maraming Salamat

As an avid audible listener, the author Jill has a beautiful, soft, yet powerful voice. I heard about this book through a KNPR's book promotion on radio during AAPI Month. It had caught my interest right away and couldn't wait for the release on audible. I don't want to share too much because of spoilers, but I will say that I have never felt so close to a stranger... This book came into my life in the right time. If you read this Jill, thank you for writing this story... I had a good cry and it also brought me so much joy. A physical copy is definitely going on my book shelf!

More about overcoming abusive father

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
The book centers on how difficult it was to grow up as an undocumented immigrant in the united states. However, the author suffers most from being raised by an abusive father who leaves her scarred and unprepared for the real world. She is presented with opportunities to succeed even as an undocumented immigrant but is unable to take advantage of them because what she suffered at the hands of her father. Interspersing Recipes through the book is very distracting when listening on audible. Author also makes a point of being bisexual but does not develop this aspect of her life, Doesn't add anything to the story. She marries her boyfriend and pursues a normal life. Understandably she is critical of the immigration process in both the US and Britain.

Raw and Real

A lot of us bookworms and audiobook listeners have dark and thought provoking (not in a good way) childhoods and stories. This was certainly that. It was easy to empathize with Jill throughout this book.