“The kitchen of the Penington was a safe space for me,” my mother recalls. As a cook there, the Penington Friends House in Manhattan became more than safe—it was sacred, helping her transcend the fear of her homeland after exile. One day, while preparing food, the aroma reminded her of “Mahi Soboor,” a childhood dish cooked by Uma, an enslaved indigenous woman from North Africa in Iran. As a child, my mother rejected Uma and her grandmother’s traditions, admiring instead the white colonial women at parties. But in the Penington kitchen, she realized her own position in America mirrored Uma’s—unacknowledged, othered, an immigrant. Her memory narrative began to shift.

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​This revelation sparked a rethinking of her past. She asked me to illustrate her story through an Iranian drawing technique, blending mixed media, archival photos, and 1950s colonial imagery. The project, four panels in total, seeks to record her re-memory, aiding decolonization of mind and spirit while connecting with immigrant communities through Culture Push’s mission.

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Panel 2 (98x39 inches, digital collage, 2023–24) depicts the central scene: the serving of Mahi Soboor, where guests from different backgrounds share a meal. Since this project is still in progress, you can see a small filtered section of Panel Two here—two of the four panels have been completed so far.