When we were given the prompt “Revealing Heritage Through Food”, we quickly decided to focus on first-generation Americans or immigrants. Knowing that we had an interview turnaround time of a few days, we sent out a screener survey on various social media platforms, the most responses coming from the UW Parent Group on Facebook, receiving over 70 responses and 20 interview volunteers.

We held our interviews in a semi-structured format, through which we encouraged participants to direct the conversation so they would feel more comfortable sharing their unique perspectives.

After the interviews, we synthesized our data to come up with 3 to 4 insights and a “How-Might-We” statement. This How-Might-We statement would drive our project for the rest of the quarter. We decided to move forward with “How might we help families ­celebrate cultural holidays through food over long ­distances to elicit the feeling of home?”.