Bok Choy Isn’t ‘Exotic’ A young generation of Asian-American farmers is reclaiming Asian vegetables — and in the process, their own culinary heritage

Scott Chang-Fleeman was in his second year of apprenticing at the farm and garden program at the University of California Santa Cruz when he began a project growing Chinese vegetables. Having grown up in West Los Angeles as a biracial, third-generation Chinese American, he didn’t know a lot about farming, nor did he have a strong connection to his Chinese culture. “Up until then, my farm education was centered around Eurocentric cuisine,” he says. 

Looking at the rows of choy sum he’d planted, his college mentors asked him what he’d like to do with his crops. Chang-Fleeman joked about selling them to Brandon Jew, chef-owner of Mister Jiu’s, a Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. One of his mentors, who had sold produce to Jew before, picked up the phone and called him. One year later, Chang-Fleeman, 24, is now planting the first seeds of choy sum, Chinese broccoli, Shanghai bok choy, chrysanthemum greens, celtuse, Japanese scarlet turnips, and Northern Chinese shunkyo radishes on his new commercial farm, Shao Shan Farm, in Marin County, California. He sees the farm as a manifestation of his reconnection to his Chinese-American heritage, and he’s been collaborating with Jew, who plans to source produce for Mister Jiu’s from the farm. 

But Chang-Fleeman doesn’t want to stop there. He wants his 1.5-acre farm to provide ethically grown heritage Asian crops for local Asian-American chefs, as well as a physical space for Asian Americans to connect their cultural identity to ideas around food sovereignty and land stewardship — topics which today have scant representation among Asian Americans.

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