COMMUNITY SESSIONS

JERIC SMITH

VIDEO SESSION COMING SOON

I came to understand my identity through being in activist spaces, through cultural movement and organizing around Pacific Islander or Oceania-related issues––primarily around anti-military and decolonial groups. And then I came into my gender and sexual identity through writing about and participating in spaces that were committed to caring for people who have experienced gender-based and sexual violence. 

MY PRONOUNS

HE/HIM/THEY/THEM

Pangasinan + Dededo + Chalan Pago (Guahan)

I AM

POET + Pastry Chef at From Typhoon + Fine Mess Bakery

EDUCATION

MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) University of Washington, Pacific Lutheran University

Photography by Terrence Jeffrey Santos

mangoeswithjericsmith.com finemessbakery.com

@mangoeswithjericsmith @finemessbakery

As a Chamoru-Filipino

queer poet and pastry chef, I craft poems and pastries that honor the layered histories of Oceania, offering nourishment through story, memory, and care. My work wrestles with migration, militarization, and queerness, feeding a vision of love, justice, and belonging across diasporic and ancestral homelands.

Knead fearlessly, write tenderly, and never serve empire!

PERSONAL MOTTO

Baking-wise: It's often invisible, the teamwork involved in making delicious baked goods. So this isn't so much my accolades alone, but I was part of a team of bakers that produced bread voted Best Baguette in Seattle four years in a row and whose head baker was semi-finalist for a James Beard award those years as well.

AWARDS + RECOGNITIONS

Pride means to me...

radical faggotry, resistance, revolution, and community care. It brings up feelings of tenderness, vulnerability, courage, and action.

I celebrate Pride by loving on friends and partners. By showing up for other queer people in need of support and resources. By feeding people! I love to eat good and fuck good most of the time, but especially so during pride month. Of course sometimes it involves gatherings and parties but more so for me and my beloveds it involves being present when things get difficult.