Culture, Cooking, and Coquitlam: An Interview with Sophia Kishi

In autumn 2021 we received a grant from the Province of British Columbia to launch our Youth IBPOC/2SLGBTQ+ Mentorship program. We selected three Coquitlam youth and worked with them two days a week to teach them about exhibit research and design. Fondly referred to as “interns” by the staff, they were paid for their time and were offered a position as a casual employee at the end of the program. Each intern had a chance to design an exhibit around a topic that was important to them, to be on display for a month at Coquitlam Public Library Poirier branch.

March’s exhibit is presented by Sophia Kishi. We asked her a few questions about why she did the program and what she learned.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Sophia Kishi and I am a 10th grade French immersion student. I am half Japanese and half South Indian, but I’ve lived in Coquitlam my whole life. Outside of school, I like to read, bake, and go to the mall with my friends.

Why did you apply for the mentorship program?

I applied for the mentorship program because I thought that researching heritage would be interesting since I already like to research different topics relating to history. I have gone to different events hosted by Coquitlam Heritage, so I was also intrigued by being mentored in Mackin House.

What is your exhibit about and why did you choose this topic?

My exhibit is about how food is intertwined with culture and community. My family always seems to have food around when we get together, so I wanted to find out more about the different ways that food connects different people and cultures.

What did you learn about working in a museum?

I learned about the different roles and responsibilities in a museum, from coordinating events to designing exhibits. In a museum, everyone needs to work together, from documenting new artifacts and objects, to creating an exhibit including the artifacts, to promoting and displaying the exhibit. While creating my exhibit, I learned how to search archives, document artifacts, and I also emailed different people that I would never have contacted otherwise.

What do you hope people take away from your exhibit?

I hope that people understand the impact that food has on our history and how food is meaningful to our heritage and culture. I also hope that it is shown that culture is related to food and therefore we can find common ground in food. I really enjoyed creating this exhibit so I hope other people can find something intriguing in my exhibit too.

Culture, Cooking, and Coquitlam is on display at Coquitlam Library Poirier until March 31.