I’m not sure if  “family of origin”  has been discussed broadly in Canada, or in Western World. It is one of the most hotly discussed topics in recent years in China. It focuses on Generation Z’s childhood experiences and their family components, usually relating to the shadows and sufferings of childhood. The most common sufferings are inequality in genders like boy preferences, alcoholic fathers, left behind children, and the strong desire to control their children.

Though Umami is not a book that mainly focuses on the family, I would like to say the family of origin impacted on characters a lot. In Ana’s section, we all know the tipping point in her family is Luz’s death. How the family treats the death is important for the formation of a world view, to another child. Ana is the other child. Unfortunately, her mother never seems to be able to get over the death of her little daughter. The “almost six” mentioned many times in the article states the pain of the whole family. In the third year of the “anniversary”, Anna’s mother still refused to step out of the house and still did not accept this fact. In opposite, her father cares for Ana more. On the way to the cemetery, he let out a low whimper. Clearly, all members of the family are lamentable, but how to express their feelings is more important because life needs to be continued. The difference in personality between Ana’s dad and mom invisibly formed her personality, an irritable, emotionally unstable little girl.

“But the name has an electric effect on her” A Sensitive person may fall into sadness again by a sentence, or a single word. Our family hasn’t experienced this in Ana’s family, but the feelings of a person can go up and down immediately like a rollercoaster. My mom is not a good driver, she had car accidents once or twice a year back in 2015-2018. Every time she was so mad at herself, but she still needed to show a good face to her director during work time. That’s why she was overwhelmed after work and tended to express her unpleasant feelings to her family members. Sometimes “careful” would be a forbidden word because it could be interpreted as “scold the locust while pointing at the mulberry”, it is Chinese slang (that says scolding another person but actually those words are said to you), though I was just warning her to be aware of hot plates in cooking, no other meanings. Later on, my mom found out my problem when speaking with my grandparents, sometimes I speak with them impatiently. And my mom knows that’s a “family problem”, we are used to showing a more polite attitude with strangers but lost courtesy at home. That is the influence of the family, a power you cannot ignore, a power that shapes your personality and ways of handling tasks.

Last week my mom called me and said she had her first car accident after 2021, but I could feel she’s more calm this time. Perhaps it is because this time she just hit the railing, not other cars. I said, “It is a great improvement, and you don’t need to quarrel with other people and insurance”. She replied to me happily and said “It sounds way much better than what your aunt said, she told me it is still my fault, cannot blame anyone else.” Well it is true, but we all like to hear more soft words. She was no longer as sensitive as before, and I was able to talk to her politely and comfort her properly, even though it was midnight on a Saturday in Vancouver and I was in a noisy restaurant with my friends.

Time will witness and heal everything.

Tortilla discourse describes the time around the 1900s in Mexico, mainly about the national policies and the false belief in food choice. It is the period led by Porfiriato, who denigrated the consumption of maize and tortilla, instead, the wheat from Europe. It classified the races into 3 kinds: wheat corn and rice, and saying wheat consumption is supreme, involved the concept of ethnocentrism that believed the colonizer, the Western world is always correct.

The detail of the policy is ridiculous, one of them outlining that the daily required protein level is twice higher than today’s standard when the government finds out the national level of nutrition is insufficient. Later they found out, that wheat and maize do not have significant differences in providing nutrition. It reminds me of the story of tomatoes, a poisonous fruit that causes death turns out is the using of lead-rich plates. From another aspect, the government wants to address the problem of inefficient Indigenous workers in factories and ascribe the causes to wrong food choices. However, the truth is the government failed to convert their thoughts of the industrialized world. According to the article, Indigenous people at that stage didn’t have any ambition for money which was far different from their cultural value.

It triggers me to think about what is “modern” economy and what is the appropriate way to create a society which could integrate Indigenous and settlers as well as development. The main reason is the unequal tie between former colonizers and the Indigenous. The case of South Africa shows the relationship. The apartheid was definitely not the right way but after the reconciliation both South Africa’s economy and safety decreased. The structural reason behind this is some legacy of apartheid exacerbates social inequality, however, people usually consider it as “their” problems, rather than seeking solutions and ignoring what the former colonizers did before.

In contrast, a positive policy emerges in the form of José Vasconcelos’s rural schooling idea. This program not only eliminated illiteracy but also solidified Spanish as the official language, significantly enhancing the overall educational quality of Mexico’s population. The ripple effects of this initiative extended to the later 1960s, marking a period known as the “Mexico Miracle,” characterized by sustained economic growth and development.