Through critical visual autoethnographic methodologies, two researchers reflect on their various experiences within interracial marriages as sacred spaces and the negotiation of being shaped by the historical colonial affects of assimilation, sense of identity and belonging, and appreciation of diversity. Through multimodal visuals, we capture the sense making process of transforming our marriage as sacred spaces for reclamation of the self through food. More specifically, we explore our acts of incorporating cultural foods from our respective cultures into our marriage as intentional acts of asserting and reconnecting what may have been lost due to the “mixing” and sharing of different cultures or races within the marriage. In this context, food represents loss, memory, reclamation of our sacred selves. It represents the disruption of cultural erasure through the act of ensuring, and sometimes neglecting cultural continuity through the cuisine we prepare. Our visuals serve as evidence of festive acts in the sacred spaces of the home, marriage, and the kitchen. We position our work as powerful assertions of decentering colonial permanency and invitation to cultural continuity through reflexivity, taste, persistence and reclamation.
