Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. T hey were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War\, where identity was politicized by everyday details&mdash\;language\, cultural references\, memories\, and food. When Grace was fifteen\, her d ynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia\, a condition that wo uld continue and evolve for the rest of her life.
\nPart food memoir \, part sociological investigation\, \;Tastes Like War \;is a hybr id text about a daughter&rsquo\;s search through intimate and global histo ry for the roots of her mother&rsquo\;s schizophrenia. In her mother&rsquo \;s final years\, Grace learned to cook dishes from her mother&rsquo\;s ch ildhood in order to invite the past into the present\, and to hold space f or her mother&rsquo\;s multiple voices at the table. And through careful l istening over these shared meals\, Grace discovered not only the things th at broke the brilliant\, complicated woman who raised her&mdash\;but also the things that kept her alive.
\nAbout the Author: \;Grace M. C ho is Associate Professor of Sociology at the College of Staten Island. Sh e received a PhD in Sociology and Women&rsquo\;s Studies from the CUNY Gra duate Center and an MEd from Harvard School of Education. Her work crosses disciplinary boundaries and seeks to engage popular audiences. From 2005 to 2007 she was a contributing performance artist for Still Present Pasts: Korean Americans and the Forgotten War\, a collaborative art project base d on the oral histories of Korean War survivors and their children. Her pa rticipation in Still Present Pasts influenced the form and content of her first book\, Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame\, Secrecy and the Forgott en War (University of Minnesota\, 2008) which combined fiction\, performan ce\, autoethnography and sociological research. It won a 2010 book award f rom the American Sociological Association for its innovative methodology. Her second book\, Tastes Like War\, was a finalist for the 2021 National B ook Award for Nonfiction and the winner of the 2022 Asian Pacific American Literature Award for Adult Nonfiction.
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