Avril Lavigne + K-pop + kimchi. Joe Rascal, an independent artist and musician, recalls bringing a “high-tech” thermos filled with kimchi and other Korean dishes to school.

Vanessa Okafo, a dancer and film producer, loved eating steamed daikon as a kid. But her classmates' reactions to the dish made her second-guess her feelings about her family’s home-cooked food.

Indie rocker and classical percussionist Yang Chen (they/she) comes to terms with the fact that a boy at school thought her rice ball looked like “Scottish boogers.”