A visual anthology spotlighting the cultural identities of immigrant American families through food, memory, and tradition. Photographer and writer Cielito Mercado Vivas traveled across six states, documenting thirteen families with roots around the world through intimate kitchen portraits, extensive interviews, and accompanying narrative essays.
Published by Daylight Books, 2026
Family Preserves featured on 6abc Action News Philadelphia. Sharing this project from my childhood kitchen felt incredibly full circle. Grateful for the love and support. Click here to watch the full segment
We successfully funded Family Preserves on Kickstarter, raising $30,805. Every pledge, donation, share, and word of encouragement. All of it mattered. Thank you for helping preserve immigrant stories.
Click above to watch the promotional video. (by Ricardo Topete, Uncommon Visuals)
Family Preserves:
Home-Cooked Stories from Immigrant Kitchens
Through these multigenerational stories, Vivas explores food as a source of comfort, a vessel for cultural inheritance, and a battleground for assimilation. Together, the stories reveal the complex landscape of immigrants and their children building lives in America.
Inspired by her own immigrant family's journey and the loss of her late father's undocumented recipes, Vivas encourages others to preserve traditions and reveals how food serves as a powerful vehicle for connection. In this modern time where loneliness, solo dining, and the political tension around immigration are on the rise, these intimate stories celebrate the beauty of connection through a cultural archive. The compilation of stories uncovers a unique perspective that weaves together global diasporas and the American experience, highlighting the unspoken bond of navigating a diverse cultural heritage with the rhythms of American life. Family Preserves invites the reader to reflect on the importance of immigrant voices and the powerful influence of food as memory, identity, and resistance.
For press and media materials, visit the press release here.
