In Dirty Kitchen, author Jill Damatac describes her own family history as an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines in the USA, while also describing the colonial history the Philippines has with the USA, while also sharing some mouth watering recipes.

Jill's family history is not easy. Her family moved from Manila to the US in 1983 when jill was nine years old. She grew as an undocumented immigrant in America and with all the troubles that come with that, while her family did everything to become legal US citizens, it seems like the system was against them becoming legal, and they never reached the legal status they strived for. Meanwhile, Jill also struggled with her abusive father, who frequently beat her up badly for no reason at all, this was truly heartbreaking to read, even as the terrible homelessness, sexual abuse and hunger Jill experienced. Jill tells everything very honestly and as it is in this memoir. It is raw and honest and true. And as a reader you truly only get deep respect for her, her determination to succeed as an immigrant, it totally leaves you speachless. After trying so long to become legal citizens without any progress, she decides to leave the USA in 2015 with her British husband who she met in New York, which truly is a new and better chapter for her in her life, and as a reader, I truly wanted Jill to have a happy life after all.

I honestly think this is the very best book that has come out this year. The book is so real and honest, you seldom find a memoir that is so open as this one. The book is moving, sad and beautiful at the same time, and more actual than ever. Many undocumented immigrants are deported as we speak, while trying to become legal US citizens. This book shows how hard undocumented immigrants work to become legal, and the failures of the system and the sad dissapointment that follows, this can go on, as is shown in this book, for years and even decades.

The book also shows the deep colonial and racial elements in society that still take place now; When Jill's mother tried to work at a bank, she was harshly told that, because she was from the Philippines, she only was allowed to work in certain fields, like nursing or cleaning or domestic work. When Jill was in college, teachers didn't believe that she written work herself. My mouth truly fell open at particular moments, as I didn't know some of the racial and colonial things Jill described, so I truly also learned a lot from this memoir, also things why Spam is so popular in Asia (I never heard of the dish Spamsilog, but it sounds good! )

As I said earlier, this is by far the best book of this year by a fantastic author!

I loved hearing a different cultural immigrant perspective in the US than I’m used to. I also love love the recipes sprinkled in the book. Just didn’t love the book

This memoir covers a lot of ground! Food, immigration to multiple countries, family, identity, abuse. At times it was difficult to read but it covered so much ground; it didn’t dwell on anything too long. I do feel like it was maybe initially marketed as a more upbeat book than it actually is., the description on Goodreads now is more complete. The immigration and Marco parts were needed and truthful but harrowing. I think if you were expected a light hearted book about Filipino food you’d be disappointed.

I'm always interested in kitchen memoirs, if that's term, and they bring a unique angle to storytelling. I saw Jill Damatac speaking on a webinar for librarians about upcoming books and was happy to find out about it and enjoy it.

A memoir that flawlessly combines food writing, family and identity while discussing immigration issues. This memoir was shocking in how much the author went through and she was still able to produce such lyrical work. A fantastic read!

In a Filipino household, there is a main kitchen and a dirty kitchen. The main kitchen is nicer, typically used for hosting, and is like any other kitchen in an average house. The dirty kitchen meanwhile is a second or adjoining kitchen. It’s hidden from view and where most of the cooking and messy activities take place that others may not know about.

In Jill Damatac’s memoir, DIRTY KITCHEN, the title itself can be considered a metaphor, but also a homage to her roots as she looks back on her life as an undocumented immigrant growing up in the US, while also reflecting on her motherland of the Philippines through Filipino cuisine.

It’s hard to put into words how much her story deeply resonated with me and forever will. It's raw and personal that leaves an ache throughout reading while still holding on to hope. It’s never easy and this is in no way a light read, but one that brings awareness and honesty from her experiences and an adoptive country that promises hope, but instead creates an invisible barrier that elicits fear and isolation, while hindering potential and always full of sacrifices that others fail to realize or at least take the time to understand.

Food has a way of telling a story and harkening back memories. So it makes sense how through food Jill Damatac is able to not only take us on her journey, but also the complex history of the Philippines that is as intricate as the dishes headlined in each chapter, down to the step-by-step recipes alongside key moments. There is also a progression to the dishes that mirrors a stage in her life. Dinuguan na Baboy (Pork in Blood Stew) symbolizes a dark and heavy time like the dish that I urge readers to take care while reading. Meanwhile, Adobong Manok (Chicken Adobo) and Halo-Halo (Mixed Shaved Sweet Ice Dessert) offer stability and awaited happiness matching her own after everything she endured and begins to reconcile with.

This is a memoir I hope everyone gets a chance to pick up. It is poignant, reflective, relevant, and one that will stay with you long after reading.

A lullabye and heartbreak of culturally diverse prose, I loved hearing the Filipino myths and lore, and soaking in their culture through these important stories. Told as family, ancestral recipes woven into a memoir, it is beautifully intricate, and simultaneously devastating. In a world where people are judged harshly for attempting to better their lives through what some less compassionate people would consider nefarious means, stories like this remind us that we are all human. We are all deserving of love, kindness, safety, shelter, protection, and to have our basic needs met. And no one of is is any better or more or less deserving than another. Trigger warnings for parental physical abuse, rape from a family member, financial abuse, gaslighting, racism, abortion, and parental/familial alienation. However these are always told gently and respectfully, even when graphic.

Filmmaker, writer, and immigrant, Jill Damatac makes many promises in her debut memoir, Dirty Kitchen. Promises to cover such sweeping topics as immigration, colonialism, oppression, identity, belonging, and much more. It is an ambitious book but, ultimately, not the right fit for me.
Damatac loudly asserts her unfavorable view of US immigration policies, Filipino Government, among other more personal grievances within her own family. I don’t fault memoirists for sharing their truth—it’s what I came to read. But how that truth is delivered matters. Damatac tends to drop historical references—like calling former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos’s regime “murderous”—without offering the necessary context to understand or engage with her judgments. This is not to say she’s wrong, but assuming your reader’s familiarity with Filipino history only serves to undermine Damatac’s claims.

The memoir, more of a thesis/therapy/stream-of-consciousness mashup more than anything, is laced with equal parts poetry, pain, beauty, and a seething, raw anger that permeates every chapter of this short but dense book. It is this unfiltered rage that is both strength and hindrance to Damatac’s goals: it both fuels the kinetic, soul-searching prose that blooms from unrealized trauma. But it can also create distance between author and reader—because it’s hard to listen when it feels like you’re being shouted at.

Dirty Kitchen has a vibrancy, anger, and painful beauty that will sit well with the souls of many of its readers. For others, especially those less familiar with the immigrant experience, it may offer a new lens through which to reconsider their assumptions. Damatac is undeniably a writer and artist—her command of language and literary technique is clear. But for me, the book’s density, relentlessness, and the sense that every sentence was an opportunity to preach, berate, or dissect left me exhausted rather than moved.

Dirty Kitchen is a moving and beautifully written memoir that blends food, family, and identity in a powerful way. Her story is raw and honest and shared in such a heartfelt way. This book is very informative of the challenges faced by undocumented immigrants. This book will definitely stay with me. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Without context, I’d say the author cries a LOT. But knowing the literal blood that went into writing this book, I think she cries a very appropriate amount.

i cannot believe this author has been through so much and comes out of it able to write about it. this book was a lot more than i bargained for, but i'm so impressed.

Dirty Kitchen is a fascinating immigrant story by Jill Damatac. I was very intrigued to read this, especially after reading Boat Baby recently. It is well written, although I found it a little jarring to read the stories and have recipes in between. This would be a great book for foodies and fans of travel and other cultures.
*Thanks to Netgalley for a free copy in exchange for honest review*

I’m SO glad that this book caught my eye. Jill Damatac’s memoir is brimming with the deeply personal and painful details of her upbringing as an undocumented immigrant and this vivid narrative is also interwoven with Filipino history, folklore, and cultural food writing. At first I found myself itching to get back to the personal memoir sections and rushing through the parts about the colonized history of the Philippines and the indigenous storytelling. The whole thing felt a bit overstuffed, but once I slowed down and realized how skillfully and purposefully all this content was put together, I realized I was reading a new favorite memoir.

This book was brutally honest and felt extremely relevant to read right now in America. It is a searing condemnation of historic colonialism and current immigration policy. Damatac’s authorial voice is unique and unflinching, and her story feels so important- this title seems to be flying under the radar right now but I hope it gets some much deserved attention!

Recommended for fans of Crying in H-Mart, Educated, and The Glass Castle.

A wonderful, touching food memoir that had me equally starving for food and laser focused on her story. I love food writing when it's done well, like this certainly is. I could feel, smell, taste everything she wrote about.

Books like Dirty Kitchen will always call to me. The backbone of America is, was, and has always been built by immigrants. Jill Damatac writes about her experience as an undocumented immigrant who wants to love her home as much as it wants to reject her.

Damatac writes fluidly, weaving in and out of metaphors and lines that read like poetry. It's comforting to read this writing style when the situation's reality is painful.

Several political figures might learn something if they read Dirty Kitchen, but that would require a soul.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was a very good book. It was well-written. At times, it was hard to read, but the resolve of her will to survive was astonishing.

This is an incredible book! I learned about America's colonization of the Philippines in my junior year US History class, but never learned about the ramifications of America (and prior countries) greed. Damatac did an incredible job of weaving the themes of each chapter with Filipino lore, history, and mouth-watering food.

I don’t even know where to begin because this wasn’t just a memoir to me, it was a mirror. it was memory. it was ache and joy and hunger all wrapped into one. Jill Damatac wrote something that felt like home, even in all its messiness.

as a Filipino-Canadian and immigrant, this memoir sliced right into the tenderest parts of me. there were moments i had to stop reading because i was sobbing. when Jill described the silence of fear, the constant self-erasure we perform to survive, the quiet rituals we do to feel rooted in a place that tells us, again and again, we don’t belong. i cried for her, and i cried for me.

her storytelling reminded me of Crying in H Mart and that is one of my favorite book. but it also felt more personal, more specific to the Filipino experience, and that specificity was everything. it was in the way she described the food like lechon, sinigang, adobo with such care that you could smell the garlic browning in the pan. it was in her recounting of colonialism, of our country’s history, that i felt both the weight of what’s been erased and the power of reclaiming it. and it was in the way she moved between countries, cultures, and versions of herself that i found my own journey reflected back at me. i felt like i was sitting across the table from her in her kitchen as she cooked. like i could hear the sizzle of onions in hot oil and smell the vinegar rising from the pan. and all the while, she was telling me a story. a hard, honest, unflinching story about invisibility, poverty, abuse, survival, and, ultimately, liberation. she didn’t shy away from the pain, but she didn’t let it consume the narrative either. she gave space to healing, to curiosity, to learning who you are when you are finally free to be.

the parts about her time in America, undocumented, broke my heart. the not-knowing, the hypervigilance, the dull pain of always feeling like an outsider. and then there was the chapter where she writes about going back to the Philippines, a place that is home and not home at the same time and i felt that strangeness in between my bones. the way she writes about identity, and how food becomes both a tether and a balm, resonated so deeply.

this memoir is a love letter to Filipino heritage, to the unspoken strength of immigrant families, to the ritual of food as memory, and to the journey of making peace with who you are especially when the world tried so hard to erase you. i laughed at the familiar chaos of a Filipino household, I sobbed at the buried trauma, and I absolutely got hungry along the way. but more than anything, I felt seen.

this book is a gift, especially for those of us who grew up in the margins. thank you so much Atria Books and for Jill for writing your truth so beautifully and bravely. Dirty Kitchen will stay with me for a long, long time.

5 ⭐️ MUST READ.

DIRTY KITCHEN is a memoir of Jill Damatac as she lived as an undocumented immigrant with her family for twenty two years in the US.

This book is utterly vulnerable - Damatac details with unfiltered thoughts her hardships as an undocumented child while dealing with her inner trauma and sense of belonging. From her family living through the regime back in Philippines to domestic abuse, one witnesses the way internalized colonial oppression dictates her parents' mentality, escalating to the instinct of survival and intergenerational punishment.

The pages are infused with Filipino folklore and I mostly appreciated the deeper understanding about Filipino history/culture. Through food culture, the act of cooking is an attempt to find a sense of self with the cultural roots and this process incorporates a more ethereal touch, making a relationship between body and spirit.

While the cooking instructions randomly described between the passages might be a creative move, I personally found it distracting. Damatac delves into mental illness and poverty, which her experiences and emotions are amplified by an evocative prose (consider checking the content warnings / I couldn't bear most of her parents' behavior). Ultimately, this is a journey of healing and reconciliation, of reconciling with those who hurt you, of reconciling with a country that failed you.

DIRTY KITCHEN gives voice to Filipino undocumented immigrants - it is a raw memoir loaded with Filipino recipes and cultural heritage. This food memoir pairs well with BITE BY BITE by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and SLOW NOODLES: a Cambodian memoir by Chantha Nguon.

This book really grew on me! I thought her story was incredibly compelling, and really loved how she integrated both food and history into her personal experiences. Would recommend for people who liked Educated or How to Say Babylon!