Naseema Gilson Interview

Interviewed by Samar Halloum
Naseema Gilson

Naseema Gilson is a long-time resident of New Haven, and the daughter of an immigrant from Afghanistan. She is the Program Director of Sanctuary Kitchen, a program of CitySeed New Haven launched in 2017 that partners with immigrant and refugee chefs to build economic opportunity and intercultural understanding through food.

Samar Halloum is a Palestinian-Jordanian Architect and researcher who recently received her Master of Architecture degree from Yale University. Upon graduation, Samar was awarded the William Wirt Winchester Travel Fellowship for her thesis Negotiations Within Refugee Camps.

Samar Halloum
Naseema, thank you so much for making the time to meet with us. I’m sure it’s busy on your end, but this is very valuable for us.

Naseema Gilson
Absolutely.

Samar
As an organization that partners with immigrants and refugees to create economic opportunities, Sanctuary Kitchen is interesting because of the complex social connections and layers it functions within. Maybe to start with, it’ll be nice to hear from you about what the organization is, when it started, and what you do in general.

Naseema
Sure. Sanctuary Kitchen started in early 2017, just after the 2016 election. A group of volunteers in New Haven decided that they wanted to do something to support the very vibrant refugee culture in New Haven. Since it was during the Muslim ban - dark times - they wanted to do something positive.
So they started Sanctuary kitchen, which at that point, were supper clubs. A refugee or immigrant chef would cook these beautiful meals in someone’s home, and there would be 15 or 16 people in attendance and they would get to share their stories and experiences coming to the United States as they share their foods. Family recipes were being shared, which is really just a cool and special thing.
I actually went to the very first supper club, which was fun, but I only started working here over the summer. It took a little while to find the right place, but it’s a great place. It kind of morphed from that to doing some events with different departments at Yale or different community groups, where the chefs would cater. Again, storytelling is a big part of what we do.
Then we decided to partner with CitySeed. CitySeed is a nonprofit in New Haven really based around food justice and accessibility. You’ll probably know us from the farmer’s markets. We’re a program of CitySeed, which is great because it just gives us that kind of economic support that we need to function. Plus with their history in New Haven and everything, it was just a beautiful, seamless (combination).
From there we decided to morph into a training program. So now it’s refugee immigrant women chefs that come through and they don’t have to have professional cooking experience or anything - even just a love of cooking. They go through a training program and when they graduate they have the culinary skills. They go through a culinary ESL class, that way they can communicate in the kitchen a little bit easier. They learn about job readiness or resume building; how to, where to look for a job; how to go to an interview, what to wear, that kind of stuff. A lot of other soft skills including public speaking and storytelling is another little module we put in the training program.
It’s been wonderful. Most of the first cohort that went through the training program are still with us, partly because the pandemic hit and we pay above industry standard wages. We realize that for a lot of them this is their first work in the United States or formal form of work, and sometimes they’re the sole earner in the family, so by being able to pay them more we’re supporting their families.
Over the pandemic, we were able to retain all of our staff so we didn’t have to let anybody go, which is huge. I know a lot of other places struggled with that, but it was pretty much the priority to make sure that everybody could stay on. We actually had a huge couple of years of growth as far as our revenue. We started a curbside pickup on Friday nights, and so they would prepare meals and people can order them and pick them up, and that was huge. We’re still doing it now because of how successful it was. So most of our cohort is still here.
We’re getting ready to start our second cohort in February, and we’re just opening applications now. It’s just, it’s a very exciting place to be. It’s supportive. It’s great.

Samar
That sounds very supportive, especially during a vulnerable phase when people are re-settling. You touched a bit on how you started with the organization. I’d like to know more about how you got involved in Sanctuary Kitchen and what value it holds in your life.

Naseema
I enjoyed the first supper club and so I continued to support. I would order meals when I could, or if I knew that they were catering events that I was already going to, I would try to network, I guess, with the people here. When the Program Director position opened, it really combined all of my skills and work history into one place.
My dad’s an Afghan immigrant, so I’m first generation, which is huge. I grew up in northwest Indiana where it’s very white and I was definitely in the minority group and it was tough. So when I moved to New Haven, it’s such a welcoming community, and everything felt comfortable. When I came here to interview, seeing other Afghan women, other women from Syria, from Iraq, we have someone from Sudan, and Mauritius, you immediately feel like you’re part of the family when you come in here.
I think that’s so special. In my many years of work history, I have never experienced anything like that. I think it’s because all of these women have been through so much in their lives and they’re all young. It’s that common kind of bond that they have. Even if they don’t know each other’s languages, they know what it means to be part of a team and a family. You feel that instantly.

Samar
It is inspiring how you’ve transformed your personal experience into embracing other minority groups. When we talk about space, we know it upholds tensioned power and political hierarchies— immigrants resettling into a new city are often pushed down to the bottom of these hierarchies. What is unique about the spatial framework you function within is that it brings people into a space where they are the main actors. Your kitchen not only allows them to challenge power hierarchies but also offers a space for solidarity through work and food before getting to know each other.
From my research on refugees’ experiences settling into camps and, historically speaking, a community kitchen or an oven seems to be associated with the purpose of a communal space where people can seek advice and talk while doing the labor. How do you see the focus on activities in and around the kitchen to be supportive of challenging these kinds of power hierarchies and then allowing space for solidarity?

Naseema
For me personally, food and cooking is a great uniter. It’s a common language that everyone shares and different cuisines are kind of different dialects, if you will. But there’s something romantic about sharing across cultures. All of our chefs know how to cook the food from all the other cultures. They are cooking recipes from their mothers, their grandmothers, and sharing that. To me that’s big because before then they may never have learned any of these recipes. It’s this great common thread that goes through with everybody, and you’re sharing that.
It’s so easy to develop that solidarity and that team and family because you’re sharing an intimate part of yourself when you’re sharing those family recipes. Outside of this kitchen, we’re sharing those recipes with the Greater New Haven community. We’re fortunate because New Haven’s so diverse that there are so many different food options and it just doesn’t all fit in the box. There are a lot of pallets that might be more interested in trying other things. So I think by them putting so much love and so much history into their recipes and then sharing it with the community, it’s just such a beautiful thing to experience.
We just had our five year anniversary. It was also the first cohort of chefs’ graduation since they had been with us for so long. We worked with a marketing and PR firm called The Narrative Project in New Haven and they sent a videographer to make a video¹ . If there’s anything that could sum up how beautiful this space is, it’s this video. Our chefs talk about how they go through so many things together. They go through the ups, they go through the downs. When they’re having family issues, everybody feels that, and everybody pitches in to help with that because they’re changing people’s views outside of this kitchen towards all of our women wearing hijab. Even that change of what the average American thinks when they see a woman wearing a hijab is powerful to watch because as soon as somebody eats the food and talks to one of the chefs, their opinion immediately changes for the positive, because, how could you not? They’re all so wonderful. It would be crazy if you didn’t.

Samar
Is the space designed for people to share it while cooking, or do people also eat together? What other activities are shared in the space?

Naseema
Our kitchen is designed so that everybody can fit to work on the line together, which is really great. During Covid when everybody had to be spaced out so far, they managed to get a lot of people behind that kitchen safely so they’re constantly together. On the other side of the prep space, they make a lot of cookies and things like that. So, there’s usually two people working at the same time. And every day we do break for family lunch. So, whatever is extra from what they’re preparing for the day, we break, we sit, and we talk about our family and whatever’s going on that we wanna talk about.
We do that every day and I think that’s such an important and rare thing. Everybody breaks at the same time. People aren’t on their phones. It’s just a great time to chit chat and catch up.

Samar
What are the main motives for people to join your community? And how do these motives change over time once they develop a set of skills?

Naseema
I almost think it’s the inverse. They look to be social, around people that are like them who either have an interest in cooking or just want to be around some other cultures.And then from there we’ve seen the switch where—we laugh sometimes—now you’re American. It’s very financially driven and like, when can I get more hours? Like how can I get a raise? Which is amazing. I mean, that’s what we want them to be working towards. But it’s so funny sometimes we’re like, “well, now you’re an American.”
All of our chefs at this point have become citizens while working here. So that’s also been a huge part of it too. It’s this motivation to say, I’m ready to move up.

Samar
That’s great to hear people seek the space and join the community knowing it’s a space that revolves around solidarity for people who are settling or going through this phase of transience.
That change towards wanting to make it economically feasible for them somehow reflects an empowerment.

Naseema
Totally. You’re empowering them enough that they feel that they’re good enough to actually be successful. We’ve had two chefs recently who have really been approaching us ready for full time.
Like, I wanna move up. We’re having those kinds of discussions, which is so great to see because it’s confidence. And these are people who a few years ago never would’ve even asked that question or even thought to ask. So it’s just this awesome confidence and empowerment. Seeing that change in them is so rewarding because they were just like, “Hey, yes, this is what you should be asking for.”

Samar
Knowing one’s worth and what they’re able to do, and then knowing you’re improving skills and working together (is powerful) They’re looking up to something, and then new members look up to the older ones. In a way they see where this is going because as you’re saying, the oldest shifts were five years ago, so someone joining this year will see what one was able to achieve in five years.

Naseema
Yep. We have two staff members who were promoted this year to an assistant operations manager and an assistant kitchen manager, and they’re both chefs that went through the program. So we would wanna promote within, and when we start the new cohort of training chefs, they’ll be paired up with one of our current chefs, so that way there’s that mentorship and closeness, and something to aspire to, like you said.

Samar
Yeah, of course. I’m interested in knowing if there are somehow networks that you see emerging from the kitchen. We talked about how they work together, but do you witness the shifts of social relationships, for example if their families are getting to know each other, or any other forms of solidarity - let’s call it - that extends beyond the framework of the kitchen? The work on producing food becomes the base from where other activities then emerge?

Naseema
Absolutely. I know that a lot of them have developed close friendships outside of the kitchen. Their families do spend time together. One chef’s brother got engaged and so they had a big party and invited everybody from here. They also know each other through other groups too. We work closely with IRIS in New Haven and there are a lot of connections there as well. A lot of people know about Sanctuary kitchen just by nature, our name and what we do, a lot of it is because the chefs share it with their friends and family. It’s kind of fun to watch them develop those friendships outside of here as well. It allows the kitchen to act as an incubator for social relationships.

Samar
That falls beyond the program written down for what the kitchen ought to do and what it would produce, which is great to hear. You talked a bit in the introduction about how the program developed over the past five years, but could you elaborate on the decision making process within the organization? Does the planning follow chefs’ suggestions or does it happen socially and economically?

Naseema
I think it’s a little bit of everything. I’m the program director and then we have a culinary director as well. We’re kind of the final line, but no decision is made with just the one or two of us.
All of the chefs are involved in decision making as far as what the menu is gonna be from week to week for a curbside menu, or we have a five week subscription plan that gets picked up on Wednesdays and it’s all healthy plant based food and it features one chef each week… This week we had Afghan, next week our chef is from Mauritius… They get to develop that whole menu themselves and they’re the star for the week.
And I would say that it’s pretty collaborative as far as our weekly menu goes as well. There’re a lot of discussions about things like “what haven’t we made in a while,” “what might be good seasonally,” “what’s working.” We try to work with a lot of the local farms to make sure that we’re giving super fresh ingredients. It’s definitely a team for sure, which can be cumbersome at times, but it works pretty well most of the time. Sometimes, opinions might clash a little bit, but usually they work that out amongst themselves before it has to escalate to anywhere.

Samar
This is interesting because it takes me to the next question where I was curious about what kind of tensions happen between the members or maybe challenges from external pressures that the community faces, whether it’s political, economical, or lack of support or networks within the community?

Naseema
We run across fewer now, I think because they’ve been working together for so long that everybody’s at that common ground.
But I do know to start with, there were kind of some tensions among the different ethnic groups, as well as within the Muslim community. I would say that they’re not issues anymore, but those are definitely some things that came up while everyone learned to work as a team. It’s great that they wanted to talk them out and iron out that tension because not only does it give them the power and information to continue to spread amongst their family, but it’s also mutual respect that they have for each other. You have to respect each other in order to be a functional team. It’s been an interesting ride to see how that gets ironed out.
Even to me as the daughter of a Muslim, there are some nuances that I’m not privy to in general, and it was very interesting to see them.

Samar
It’s interesting that you’re linking these discussions with their ability to work together. I’m interested to hear more about, when in the program do they have to share this interdependency, where working solo doesn’t support the team and the function? Because when we think about the chef, you think it’s a one person show, and it’s interesting to hear that the model of food production process is teamwork.

Naseema
Right. Because we do so much catering, we’re preparing dishes on a large scale. It really does take a few people to create one dish. Somebody’s doing the prep work, somebody’s actually cooking it and then somebody’s packing it up. There has to be that constant communication through. In the first couple of months of the training program, they’re doing the culinary ESL classes, and learning about scaling recipes and standardizing measurements and things, which is another thing that we always have to laugh about - the difference in measuring systems. So trying to relearn that is really funny too. But once they get into the kitchen and they’re actually preparing the food, that’s when the light bulb goes off and they all have to pitch in to do these things in order for us to effectively get everything finished.

Samar
It does sound like a process that needs a team that functions in harmony to support it. You’ve mentioned so many different nationalities and people coming from different backgrounds. Typically when in their resettlement do they join? Is it that they’ve arrived a week ago or they’ve been in New Haven for a month, or a year?.

Naseema
I think most of them had been here for a decent amount of time and were fully resettled before joining the program. Part of that is because our physical space is small, but not tiny, so we ask everybody to have some baseline of English, at least to be able to communicate. Just bare minimum - they don’t have to be fluent. It’s because we just don’t have the physical space to have an interpreter here for everybody. So usually that means that people have either been here for a little while - most have been here for at least a few months, probably a year for a couple of people - or they’ve just taken some intense ESL classes first.

Naseema
At the beginning you talked about sharing family recipes and that reminded me that with people who are forced to leave home, taking a family recipe is taking a part of home and sharing about the place they left behind. These people came from so many different backgrounds, nationalities and races. How do you see the diversity playing a role, both in sharing food and recipes, and in the social interactions?

Naseema
I think the diversity is what makes it so interesting and also makes us so successful because there is just such a wide array of things to choose from, and people have gotten excited about learning other food from other cultures because it’s challenging them from an intellect point of view as they learn all new things. They’re getting to know their team members a little bit on a deeper level because they are bringing that piece of home, that piece of their family and sharing it with the team. That mutual sharing is really special and they have developed such a close bond because of that. One of our chefs made a chicken recipe from another of our Iraqi chefs at home and her family requests it all the time - it’s called Rawaa’s Chicken. Then the family talk about it to their friends and other family members. So it’s great how it spreads like that.

Samar
It’s a great way of creating a network that expands into families and beyond. How many chefs do you have at the time?

Naseema
We have about 10 chefs that work regularly in the kitchen, on a rotating schedule. Two full-time; the rest are part-time. We have about 40 chefs still in our network, so when we get asked to do speaking engagements we call upon another group of chefs that have been part of our program in one way or another over time. They are ambassadors for us.
I did an event at Amity High School in Woodbridge with one of our chefs who’s not a catering chef and doesn’t come in and cook regularly. She talked about her experience as a refugee from Syria and what Sanctuary Kitchen does and how we help.

Samar
Can you talk a bit about your public speaking training? I was surprised to hear that’s a part of the program.

Naseema
Our philosophy is that everybody who works here is also an ambassador of the organization. So when they go out into the world, we want them to be able to speak about Sanctuary Kitchen in a way that everybody understands. But it’s also a great opportunity for them when they get asked to do these speaking engagements because they can go out on their own and feel confident that they can talk about it. We usually prepare them on how to speak slowly enough so people understand, focus on the content, and make sure they have an outline of what they want to say. All of the standard public speaking advise.
It’s not a very long part of the training program, but it’s also helpful in everyday life. If they’re going to interview for a job, the key is to be able to communicate. It all ties together really nicely.

Samar
Do people who graduate from your cohort go on to apply for work elsewhere?

Naseema
Yeah, that’s the goal. This first cohort, they’re pretty much still with us because we realized during the pandemic it was great to keep them on board, but they’re the ones that are going to become the trainers for the next cohort because they’re going to be the mentors. They’re going to be helping them through the whole process. Really this first cohort has been invaluable to us. The goal for the incoming cohorts after this is that they’ll be able to graduate and then move on to other endeavors, anything really. They’ll be prepared to work anywhere in the culinary business: front of house, back of house, food service at the hospital or in a restaurant. It’s up to them, but they’ll be prepared for anything. Some of them might just want to move on to different jobs, but no matter what, those soft skills that they’ve developed here will be helpful in their job search.

Samar
That’s a great plan to have. We touched earlier on how the cohort comes in and looks up to the cohort before them. That’s great. You’ve talked a bit about relationships you have with other networks. How do you connect with other organizations in New Haven and how are the chefs connecting with people from other organizations? Do these networks grow beyond the space of the kitchen with other organizations or is it kept efficient and practical?

Naseema
No, I would say it grows pretty far because we work with IRIS and that’s where a lot of our referrals come through for trainees. They’re one of our stronger partners who are able to tell people like, “Hey, if you like cooking, apply for the training program.”
We now connected with so many different departments at Yale through catering and everything. So the chefs, whenever we do catering, usually would go and either deliver the food or stay to meet people and tell people what they’re eating. They have business cards they can hand out to people. It’s a great way for them to develop their own personal network. In the broader New Haven community, we’re pretty well known, and a lot of that is because of the chefs themselves getting the word out.

Samar
That’s great to hear. I’m curious if any of the chefs is also growing their own food business?

Naseema
Yes, so CitySeed also has a program called Incubates, and it’s a food business accelerator. People who want to open their own food businesses can go through this program to learn about everything that they need to start their own food business. A couple of our chefs are talking about doing that to open their own restaurant or food truck.
One of our chefs that went through the program originally, she and her husband opened a restaurant in Westville and it’s really successful. They’re doing great.

Samar
Do they grow their own vegetables, fruits for the kitchen?

Naseema
Physically growing it? Not that I know of. A lot of them have backyard gardens, but nothing that we use in the kitchen is from there. I think that’s an absolutely beautiful goal that we should have. If we had outdoor space in our current kitchen space, we would absolutely do that, but we don’t.

Samar
I’m curious because, although my work is on refugees inside refugee camps, but the culture of growing your own food is always present, especially in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. It’s like eating from your own soil. It’s like taking a family recipe out and sharing it. One of the refugee camps I visited, there were people who were using their rooftops to grow their vegetables at a very small scale for family use. It’s almost loosely caught because it’s the closest they can get to the feeling of growing food in the land they lost. So growing your own food, preparing the food and cooking the food, it creates a connection to something that one lost, but also helps one settle in a new place and a new environment.

Naseema
Yeah, absolutely. In an ideal world, we would definitely be able to do that. I think the good part is that, again, because New Haven’s so diverse, there are enough markets and things that have foods from Middle Eastern cultures and we’re able to source ingredients close enough to what they’re used to. At least we have that.

Samar
That is great to hear. I was recently in Oslo and I visited one community garden, where part of it was a kitchen and a house where they had the three different areas that corresponded to Pakistani bread making, Arabic bread making and Norwegian bread making. That community farm is open to basically everyone, both residents and immigrants, refugees. As a person who entered as a tourist, I was allowed to go work there and also use the kitchen space to cook. If I wanted to bake, I would’ve been able to.
That was nice to see because you mentioned when sharing food, you don’t need to speak the language. Food is a language of its own to share part of your identity. By eating and tasting it, you’re able to understand it. There is that very beautiful metaphor there.
Everyone I met there were people that are going through a phase of transience, even so for the residents of the city because they were trying to move away from the overcrowded city to find a better connection to nature. The refugees and immigrants were trying to find a network of people who have been through similar experiences through cooking, where you don’t have to over-explain yourself.

Chong
I was curious, instead of growing their own food, if the menus and recipes the chefs bring to the table have introduced any ingredients that are not typically grown here to the farmers at the farmers market, for example, and changed any farming practices or encouraged the local farmers to grow things that they never grew before?

Naseema
That’s a great question. A lot of our chefs found American equivalents to a lot of things that they want to cook with, which isn’t the ideal situation for sure, but they can find something that’s somewhat similar, otherwise it’d be imported. We try to get as local as possible. We try. The chefs talk to food vendors about what they like to use. So I’m wondering if those conversations are happening more than what I know about, because it would be really great to see if the farmers pick up some of that.
A lot of our farms do grow heirloom varieties as well. So a lot of the farms that come to the markets are selling things that you wouldn’t really find in a normal, typical American grocery store. So I do think that there’s a solid move towards that in the future.