On a sunny summer day in June, Jae Shin hosted his fourth annual pig roast in his Spenard backyard. Friends and neighbors came to watch as the pig sizzled over the fire.
“It’s always done in this style, Argentinian style, splayed out over a fire for several hours,” Shin said.
The idea came about in the summer of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they were looking for ways to spend time together outside.
“Most of my friends either own restaurants, are chefs or are culinary professors, and so the whole food thing has always been a constant with all of us to bring people together,” Shin said.
The pig roast has become a yearly ritual for Shin and his friends, not unlike many of the summertime barbecues and cookouts that take place in backyards, campgrounds and parks across the city. For some, barbecues serve as more than just seasonal gatherings. They foster community, allowing people to meet, forge new friendships, and share their cultures and traditions.
Melanie Leydon, who helps organize the BIPOC Pride BBQ, values this aspect deeply. The event she started with her friends, which is aimed at creating a welcoming space for LGBTQIA+ people of color, has grown each year.
On a drizzly weekend at the end of June, about 25 people gathered under a rainbow-decorated picnic pavilion at Valley of the Moon park for the fourth annual BIPOC Pride BBQ.
“We really wanted to create an event and a space for our friends, you know, to come together and just celebrate who we are, where we come from, all of our cultures,” Leydon said.
A barbecue felt like the perfect way to start a small BIPOC-focused Pride event, Leydon said, because a version of the outdoor gatherings are a large part of many cultures. She’s Hawaiin and said luaus and pig roasts have always brought her family together.
“For me, food has always been such a gathering space and just makes for connection and just honoring, like, who we are, where we come from,” Leydon said.
Naturally, Leydon brought her favorite Hawaiian foods to the BIPOC Pride BBQ: macaroni salad and kalbi chicken she made using her grandmother’s recipe. She said she loves trying what other people bring, too, like Sri Lankan-style salmon wrapped in banana leaves.
Stacks of paper plates and to-go containers made it easy for attendees to serve themselves from the tables full of homemade food while they mingled. The barbecue is a space for people to connect with each other and make new friends, and also a time to plan for future get-togethers, to keep building up the community.
“It just shows that we're creating our own little pocket, and people are believing the work that we're doing as just regular neighbors in the community,” Leydon said. “It's been loving, and that's really the mantra here, is just like, you know, be respectful, be kind, be loving, be you.”
Back in Spenard, just a mile or so from Jae Shin’s backyard, Corey Gresham barbecues as often as he can. Growing up in Georgia, he and his family would grill all the time.
“It’s in my blood,” Gresham said. “By the time I was nine I was able to prep the grill, start it and get it ready for my dad and my granddad. So by the time I was 10, I had done my whole first solo cook.”
And now, it’s something he’s passing on to his preteen son — they cook up everything from burgers to pork to steaks.
“I barbecue a little more than I normally would because my son, he’s engaged with it as well,” Gresham said. “And he has a ‘Grill Master, Jr. shirt’ and I have a ‘Grill Master, Sr.’”
There’s no set schedule, or even season, the dad-son duo feel confined to when it comes to the outdoor barbecue. Nice weather, special occasions and no reason at all are reasons to make dinner on the grill.
“Sometimes it’s by request,” Gresham said. “Sometimes it’s for gatherings. Sometimes it’s a flavor that you want – there’s a certain taste. Any reason is good enough for me.”
Editor’s note: This reporting is supported in part by a grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum and the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
