How can a middle-aged woman in New York care for her aging immigrant parents in the Bay Area? She can’t. In “Aging in Place,” Min Liao’s latest for Alta Journal, the author relays a childhood of helping her mother and father navigate a new life in the United States, from essential errand runs to the confusion of rapidly evolving technology to decades of feelings of otherness. Now, just as she’s hitting her groove, Liao returns to the Bay Area to help her folks as they tackle a new set of challenges. Liao, one of the many tasked with the responsibility of assisting aging parents, sits down with Alta senior editor Matt Haber to discuss the generational issues and sacrifices of immigration and re-establishment as she returns to her family home in California after 30 years.
About the guest:
Min Liao is a chef, culinary consultant, freelance writer/editor, and longtime New Yorker. She was born in Taiwan and raised in the Bay Area, where she grew up in San Mateo County. With a background in public health education and a wide range of experience in the hospitality and creative industries, her work often meets at the intersection of care, communications, and cultural impact.
In a former (analog) life, Liao was the managing editor of Seattle’s alt-weekly The Stranger in the early 2000s. Her writing from The Stranger has been published in the national anthology Best Food Writing. While Liao is currently based in NYC, her West Coast roots run deep: she’s been the harvest chef for wineries in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, she’s worked on an oyster farm on Washington State’s Hood Canal, and she writes for a branding and communications agency in the Pacific Northwest.•
