What stood out to me when I first read Chino’s piece was the way we both connected our concepts of home to food, specifically the food that we had associated with our experiences there, as well as common popular food items related to that location. This is perhaps due to food being significantly connected to memory and emotion. Food is also a communal experience. We eat with other people more often then not, and sometimes it is the experience of who you are eating with that matters more then the quality of the food itself.  Food based memories were something that were also mentioned by Nagi, in their story. In that story, the regular routine of going to a sushi restaurant every Saturday was strongly connected to their idea of home. It makes sense that home is in some ways defined by familiar patterns, and common occurrences. In some way, home can be seen as repeated patterns, and rather then one singular experience, a pattern of multiple experiences. Like stories, home can also be seen as a web of connections, experiences, and patterns. Additionally many of the memories Chino and Nagi mentioned also included the people in their life who lived with them in both places, particularly family, who were strongly connected to their conceptualization of home.

In contrast, both Gabi and Maya have had negative family experiences which have made the place that was supposed to be their homes feel less like a home. However, they both found home in other ways, such as Gabi finding experiences of home through her friends, and in places where she felt she was accepted. This connects, do the concept of the chosen family, where individuals designate family members, not by blood, but by those who generate feelings of “support and safety”. Like families, I also think that we choose what our home is. Sometimes, unfortunately the places we live in or the environments we find ourselves in do not allow us to feel safe or like we belong. But home is a designation, like family, and that is one which each individual feels and chooses for themselves.

Both Emilia and Jade connected their home to ideas relating to immigration, and like me, Emilia and Maya mentioned how our homes exist on land that had been taken from peoples who were there long before we were. Home can be a problematic notion when it was taken from others.

However, immigrants exemplify how home is something that is fluid and selected. People can have multiple homes, or the place we consider home can change throughout life. The largest connecting thread between all conceptualizations of home, were of places of safety and belonging more then specific connecting factors.