Reem Assil: On Palestine, labor activism and a the warmth of Arab Hospitality
“I think if I can help show that steadfastness that is in me,then I’ve done my job really well”
This is an interview we did with Chef Reem Assil of Reems California for an event with West Edge Opera. Reem is a Palestinian-Syrian labor organizer turned chef who owns Reems California, a community hub that offers traditional Arab street food and hospitality infused with California love.
No Immigrants No Spice:
If you were a spice what spice would you be?
Reem Assil:
I usually say either cinnamon or cardamom. Let's see… I'm feeling cinnamony. I'm kind of warm and comforting, and I play a good kind of support character. But if you have too much of me, it's a little zingy.
No Immigrants No Spice:
How does food connect you to your heritage?
Reem Assil:
In so many ways I think food was my gateway back to myself at a time when I was deprived of food in my early 20s.
I was an East Coast kid just trying to find my way. I struggled with something I don't know in retrospect, I don't know if it was some sort of depression but I was really sick and couldn't eat. I developed severe acid reflux, and dropped out of school and found my way to California, and it was kind of a scary moment of my life, but I had to relearn how to have a relationship with food.
It was in moving to California where I rediscovered ingredients, and every time I learned about how to cook with an ingredient, especially in a California context it would conjure up a memory of like my childhood, or my moms cooking or the homeland. And the more I learned to cook in California the more I learned how to cook like an Arab which is very ironic.
It makes sense now having been in it for a long time that my heritage is very based on the land and living off the land. My people are rural people. We lived off the land. We are connected to our love of the land, and respect the ingredients and that helps me reconnect to my roots by learning how to cook again.
No Immigrants No Spice:
How long have you been in the area and what are some upcoming offering that you would want people to know about
Reem Assil
How long have I myself? Yeah, I am coming on my 20 year anniversary living in the Bay, and Oakland specifically has been home to me for the better part of 20 years. Oakland is my heart. You know Reems is also on the cusp of celebrating some huge milestones. It is our 10 year anniversary of being a business from our first farmers market. And we're right on the cusp of our five year anniversary in the Mission where we opened the day before the world shut down.
I feel very fortunate, and blessed to still be a business in the Bay. From our first brick and mortar in the Fruitvale all the way to now in the Mission and to our farmers markets, we have always met the moment of what people wanted while staying true to ourselves. We are really rooted and community. So we're excited for what the next 10 years will bring us.
In terms of our offerings and what we're really excited about it’s just to be that community bakery. We are also doing these Sunday suppers once a month, so just had one which was really beautiful, celebrating Arab and Black foodways for Black History Month. One Sunday a month, we have a multi-course meal where people get to experience storytelling, come together, sometimes to the table with strangers, and hopefully walk out with new friends. You know. And yeah, we do that every month.
We are surviving by capitalist terms but we are definitely thriving in community terms.
No Immigrants No Spice
Yeah, I'm getting really hungry
As part of their summer opera festival in Oakland, West Edge Opera is premiering David and Johnathon, The biblical love story of Jonathan, son of the first king of Israel,
and David, killer of Goliath. The love story takes place in the Philistines, in present day Palestine. We wanted to showcase your food as well as your history as a Palestinian Syrian Chef. In this current moment is there anything you want people at large to be aware of as to the palestinian experience here in the Bay area or in the diaspora at large?
Reem Assil
I'm not an expert. I don't know all the communities, but I'll just share that last night I was talking to this journalist. He's Honduran from Bethlehem, so he's originally Palestinian and he is doing this amazing project of looking at Palestinian diaspora all over the Americas, which is so fascinating to me. He said “You know I'm a journalist. I've been embedded in all sorts of places but as for communities, and you know, the Palestinians always stand out as that one community where you can't shake them. You can't shake that connection to their roots. Regardless of where they are in the world.
We have this unshakable will to stay connected to our roots. That's Sumud- the Arabic word for steadfastness. Really it's so unique to the Palestinian people. The journalist told me there are people in Chile who have lived there for 100 years and they still speak Arabic the way it was spoken 100 years ago. You know they've never been back to their ancestral homeland. That's the Arabic that they carried down from generation to generation, so that's the Arabic that they know. And that just gave me chills to think about that that just like real commitment, to preserving the traditions, the language, the music, the art and the food
So going back to your question. I feel very blessed that I get to be Palestinian and that I have that lineage.People tell me that like I am so resilient , I'm like I must've gotten that for my grandmother and my grandmother's grandmother. You know,it comes from the strong lineage that I was so blessed to get in my DNA.
So when I think about my role I got into this because I wanted to challenge the trope of Palestinians as either the terrorist or the refugee, and particularly now when the world has empathy for Palestinians. I mean, obviously there's a complete dehumanization, but you know on the other side. There's this ground swell of empathy around the global community for what is happening, but I don't want us to be just victims.
I think if I can help show that steadfastness that is in me,then I've done my job really well. As a Palestinian we have a lot to teach. I mean, I don't have an ounce of what people in Gaza have, you know, in terms of teaching the world, but If I can carry a little bit of that spirit, I feel very blessed to do that. I think that in terms of just the tenacity, and the willingness to stare hell in the eye, and say we're not afraid, and will still be joyful. It's something really powerful
As a part of their summer opera festival in Oakland, West Edge Opera is premiering Dolores, about the 1968 Delano Grape Strike and Dolore Huerta's involvement with the United Farm Workers. What is your history with labor organizing in the bay area? How did the shift to a culinary career happen?
My history of labor organizing goes all the way back to my college days. I first became aware of class issues when I was at the University, where dining hall workers were organizing. I got involved with the student labor movement in support of those staff members, including the janitorial staff, many of whom were subcontracted workers trying to organize. This was my first glimpse into the underbelly of academia, and it was disillusioning. That's actually one of the reasons I left school and decided to become an activist.
Looking back, I realize I’ve always had a strong sense of justice. When I saw something that was unjust, I wanted to do something about it. That experience in college opened my eyes to the idea of organizing, though I didn’t yet know what it would look like in practice.
When I moved to the Bay Area, I knew I wanted to work in social justice. I became a community organizer, working with an organization that provided technical assistance to other groups. However, I eventually realized that I wanted to focus more on the workplace. What I saw at school—workers putting their lives on the line—really struck me. For many of these workers, especially immigrants, their workplace was a matter of life or death. Many were Central American immigrants with English as a second language, and the courage they showed in fighting for their rights inspired me. I wanted to help people find that courage, too.
So, I became a union organizer. I worked with SEIU Local 1877, organizing airport workers. It was an amazing experience.
You know it's the airport TSA and all the security. That's all immigrants, right but then 911 happened and there was a huge backlash against all immigrant communities, particularly in the Bay Area there are these Filipino communities who were in those jobs, and in order to get those jobs back they had to take a literacy test so it was very very targeted to change the demographic of the well paid jobs.
So many of these immigrant communities ended up working in airports, doing subcontracted, low-wage jobs. I'm talking about minimum wage, and these are the people responsible for your security. Minimum wage jobs—like ticket checking, baggage handling, and pushing wheelchairs—all of it was being done by immigrant workers. So, I organized those folks, and it was an incredible experience. It was also scary because I was starting from scratch. I literally had to go in there and pretend I was just a student, curious about their experiences. Some of these people were even afraid to tell me their wages. But to go from that, to seeing them stand up and demand a union from their boss—that was such a transformative experience for me.
It’s scary because you’re messing with people’s livelihoods. You really want to make sure they understand the risks and what it means to be collectively organized—and how to actually do that. I was just this young person, but it was such a beautiful experience.Seeing people go through that transformation was powerful.
Years later, I transitioned to more coalition-based organizing, where you bring community and labor together to fight for different causes. Often, it’s community members versus labor, especially in things like building projects. I was working on a development project e and we were doing a workshop with middle school students—there were about 60-70 of them. We asked them, "What do you like about the development in your community? What don’t you like? What would you rather see?" These kids were brilliant. There was this teacher's aid who needed a ride- I drove her home, and she told me a story about her father, who was an airport worker.
I was like, "What?" And then I told her about my labor work, and she was like, "Oh my God, you don’t even know what that union did for my father." He wasn’t actually in the shop I was organizing, but because of that, he inspired his own terminal to start organizing. We fought for a living wage, a city ordinance that raised his wage almost double. It made such a difference for his family and boosted his confidence. It was just such a beautiful story. You never really know the ripple effects your organizing can have. That’s why we do it.
That's beautiful. In your work as a chef and activist how have you seen food build bridges towards justice:
Well, I think food is a gateway. I generally see food as a way to tell stories in the most human and most accessible way possible. That's of our approach with Reems. Our food tells a story. If you follow the food it's an invitation to tell a story, so I think food is kind of an entry point. I don't think it stops at the food. You know food alone doesn't create justice right but if we can bring down the barriers a little bit, the senses bring people to their most vulnerable state than maybe we can have the uncomfortable conversations. And maybe we can find the intersections. I mean, as it stands for communities of color or communities that have a history of struggle, but our foods can give us clues for how we overcame those struggles so we can share notes, so that's definitely a way. Bu I just don't love that phrase of building bridges because often times its talking about building bridges with the oppressor.
Food builds bridges between people who have been oppressed and divided again against one another so in that way I do think the building bridges is important, but I'm always hesitant or careful to use the word that the term building bridges as a euphemism for people who benefit from some of the systems of injustice as it relates to food.
I like to talk about food as a starting point. To tell a story, right? But, it doesn't stop at the table And I do think food could be used as a system could be used as a tool to fight for Justice. Because if you have food sovereignty, that's a gateway to the liberation of people because if you have access to food in the way that's accessible to you. That means that you have ownership over the food. What does that mean? That's then there's economic justice there, right?
Or that you have ownership of your narrative which leads to racial Justice. If you solve for the food you solve for a lot of different things. And so I do think that's why I feel like food is the new frontier of organizing, at least for me. When you empower so many people within the food system to make choices for themselves you're also changing society, because most of the people in the food system are immigrants and indigenous.
No Immigrants No Spice:
The last question: What is your favorite opera or live performance?
Reem Assil
Les Miserables