Cha Gio (Vietnamese Egg Roll)

Cha Gio is a Vietnamese egg roll comprised of pork, mushrooms, carrots, etc. You wrap it in in rice paper and fry it till it's brown. You can either eat it as a finger food or with vermicelli along with beef and shrimp.

Beyond its yummy taste and comfort, cha gio represents a very important information of my mom's life that too often second generation Vietnamese Americans like me do not get to hear. I remember the first time I asked my mom when and how she learned how to make cha gio, a whole new chapter of identity and immigration stories opened up. It was my first time learning about my mom's and her family's im/migration journey in depth. I learned that before coming to America, my mom had to stay in a Philippines's refugee camp before being reunified with my grandmother. Unlike Eastern Europeans immigrants who entered through Ellis Island and East Asians who entered through Angel Island, my mom as a Southeast Asian refugee entered through Philippines. It was at the camps that she learned how to make cha gio from her friends. And it is because of this food that I learned that my mother's family is originally from southern China and they immigrated to southern Viet Nam to escape poverty, famine, etc. For me, cha gio is packed with family history and struggles that generations to come should never forget.