The Thousand Tiny Turns That Shape a Life with Maker, Teacher, and Shop Owner Jen Palacio
Show Description (also the podcast Intro):
Hello and welcome to the BOSFilipinos podcast. I’m your host, Trish Fontanilla.
Each episode, we celebrate Filipino and Filipino American culture, identity, and community in greater Boston.
Today’s guest is Jen Palacio, owner of Tiny Turns Paperie! She also has an art practice called Just Enough Nonsense, and teaches at some of our local colleges around the city. In this episode, we trace the winding path from her Filipino American upbringing in Connecticut to becoming a beloved small-business owner in Somerville. She talks about discovering art through her grandmother, detouring into the corporate world, and eventually finding her way back to creativity through letterpress. This episode is a celebration of the thousand tiny turns that shape a life.
I’m so excited for you all to get to know her. Enjoy!
Stay in touch:
BOSFilipinos - IG: @bosfilipinos, Email: info@bosfilipinos.com
Jen Palacio - Personal IG: @kokojuice, Store: @tinyturnspaperie
Trish Fontanilla: All right. Hey, Jen, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today.
Jen Palacio: Hi, Trish. I'm so excited to be here.
Trish: So, I do this little exercise where I try to figure out when I first connected with people. We had connected through Instagram, but I think the first time we actually met was at a Gather Here holiday market of some sort. And I think I bought the last parol ornament. We're talking on Zoom today, podcast listeners, but I have my little mini Christmas tree up behind me, and it's at the top of the tree. I don’t know if you remember necessarily interacting with me or BOSFilipinos, but I think that’s the first time we actually connected in person—at that market.
Jen: Yeah, I think you might have bought the last one of the mini—like I was trying to hack how to make ornament size out of bamboo as true to a parol as possible, but mini. Yeah, I think you might have bought the last one I ever made, because they're so complicated to make that I never have time to make them.
Trish: Oh, ever?
Jen: Yeah.
Trish: Oh, wow.
Jen: I have to figure out how to make them durable or make them at a regular pace. And things just got so busy, I haven't had a chance to make that size and that style again. So…
Trish: Oh, wow.
Jen: I keep trying to think about going back to it and figuring out how to get the process down, but they're kind of delicate. So it's hard to make a lot of them.
Trish: Yeah. I have a lot of metal ornaments. I do end up bubble-wrapping it. But now that you say it, yeah, actually it is quite delicate. Wow, I should have you autograph it or something. If that's the last one that you're gonna do. It's like…
Jen: I keep saying every year I'm going to try and figure out how to make it happen again so I can have at least a few. But it's hard, especially in the holiday season when I have to figure it out. I have to put it in my calendar—figure out how to do it in April. That's the only way it's going to get done.
Trish: Yeah, I'll put a reminder on my calendar and I'll remind you. Great. Well, what's really awesome is I think you're one of the first guests that we haven't really talked outside of social media DMs and things. So I'm really excited to take some time to get to know you and to introduce you to our audience. So I always like to start off with where you grew up and all that kind of good stuff.
Jen: Yeah, I grew up in Connecticut. Both of my parents are from the Philippines, but they met in New York. My dad grew up kind of north of Manila in Mauban, and my mom grew up in the Batangas region in San Jose. They were not that close physically growing up, but I guess in college they were sort of near each other and kind of knew the same people, and they met over a rice cooker or something like that—some kind of Filipino thing.
Trish: Hashtag so Filipino.
Jen: No, exactly. I want to say it was a rice cooker, but I think my mom will probably tell me I got that wrong. It was definitely some sort of cooking device that my dad's best friend at the time borrowed from my mom's sister. And so they met when he was returning it.
Trish: Gosh, I love that. That's very cute. Hey, y'all romance writers out there—that is such an Asian thing to happen. And please write that story. And then what made them move to Connecticut? Was that after having you, or do you have siblings?
Jen: Yeah, I am a weird Filipino only child. But they moved to Connecticut because that's where my dad's brother and sister ended up, I think. My grandmother was also here, so my aunt and my grandmother were teaching in the New Haven public school system. So my parents moved to Connecticut to be closer to them. My dad only has a brother and a sister, but my mom has five older than her and five younger than her. Half came to the US in the seventies and eighties, and the other half stayed in the Philippines. So I have a lot of first cousins. My mom's family settled mostly in New Jersey, and my dad's in Connecticut, and I think that's how my parents ended up in Connecticut.
Trish: Oh, that's so funny. We should try and figure out offline if our parents know each other, because my parents met in New Jersey and stayed in Jersey. They moved to the suburbs after a couple of kids. But I don't know much about the Filipino Connecticut scene. Is there a scene, or what was it like growing up Filipino American?
Jen: In the early eighties, there wasn’t much of one. Where I grew up, I was either related to or the only other Filipinos were literally from my grandmother’s village or something like that—the way Filipinos end up near people they know. But there were five Filipinos in my high school. So I was definitely only exposed to Filipino culture with my direct family or through the tri-state barangay parties on Liberty Island every July. Or sometimes there were families doing the statue-of-Mary novena rotation. Outside of those big gatherings, it was really just my direct family. So I was definitely more on the American side of Filipino American growing up. Like, I don't speak Tagalog because my parents were worried it would impact my success in school. I understand it well, though—I can have the kind of conversation where if somebody wants to talk to me, I usually understand.
Trish: I only know if people are talking about me if they point their lips at me. So you're further advanced.
Jen: Well, I think it's because my parents used it too much as a way to talk about us behind our backs. And even though I'm an only child, because my parents were one of the two families that had a place, my mom’s siblings or other relatives who came from the Philippines would live with us. I didn't have my own room until I was twelve, because I always had an aunt—or three aunts—sharing my room. My cousin's parents moved in when I was eighteen months old, and they still live with my parents. So I grew up with four parents and a little brother.
Trish: Love that. I mean, I think a lot of immigrant families are like that. I had a cousin that lived with us for six or seven years. People are like, “Wait, what?” No one's ever staying for a weekend—it's always months or years.
Jen: Yes. And I had no idea that that wasn't normal at all.
Trish: One hundred percent.
Jen: So much of the stuff—I'm like, oh, that was actually an immigrant experience or a first gen experience. I didn’t realize any of it until I was an adult because you just think it’s normal when you're growing up with it.
Trish: Yeah. You unlocked the memory of the statue of Mary coming to the house. It’s just so funny now. If people listening don’t know: there’d be a statue of Mary, maybe from the Philippines, and you'd have to get a priest to say mass in the house (which I don't think was legit then or now). And there'd be a full-on party. And thinking about post-COVID… you'd have to kiss everyone on the cheek. And then later people are gambling, playing cards or mahjong, drinking beer… all in the same space.
Jen: It's so wild. It's really funny to think of all the things that overlap.
Trish: So in Connecticut, where did you go to school? Did you stay there, or how did you end up in Boston?
Jen: I grew up in the same house in Hamden, just outside of New Haven. For college, I came to BU—Boston University. I started pre-med (as most Filipino kids do), and I ended up with a business degree because organic chemistry was not my jam. I worked as a project manager for about seven years. I went back to Connecticut, lived in Virginia briefly, and then wanted to return to the northeast. I got a job at Fidelity, and that's how I ended up back in the Boston area.
Trish: Oh, wow. So how do you go from working at Fidelity to opening up your shop and doing your artist work?
Jen: Yeah, it's really funny. I always tell the kids who work for me: you never know what combination of things will help you get where you want to be, so it's okay to roll with it if you don't know your path. A lot of it starts with my grandmother—the way we bonded was through art. She taught me how to paint and do craft projects. When I lived in Virginia, I always felt the corporate 9–5 wasn’t quite for me, but I didn’t know what else was possible. So I took art classes, joined a club where we made cards, met young moms who were scrapbooking… I didn’t want to scrapbook, but I used the materials for journaling and greeting cards. And eventually with any hobby, you make too much, start giving it away, and people say, “You should sell these.”
When I came back up here and knew Fidelity wasn’t right for me, I tried going back to school. Harvard Extension had a letterpress studio, and I took a class. That opened the door to printmaking. My cousin introduced me to someone in the Boston art scene and basically strong-armed me into doing my first craft show—Artbeat—in 2011. That was my entry into the Boston area art community.
Trish: Yeah, yeah. Artbeat in Davis Square, right?
Jen: Yeah. It’s the Somerville Arts Council festival. She pulled me into a show connected to Artbeat—it was in the back of The Burren. It was so fun.
Trish: I love it.
Jen: Yeah. At the time I was like, “Here are all the things I know how to make,” and I tried to sell them all. Looking back, it was a hot mess, but it was my first time selling my art directly to people.
Trish: And so what inspired you or made you think you wanted a storefront? Your first storefront was in Bow Market, right? Or did you have something before?
Jen: Once I quit Fidelity, I did murals, custom invitations, art markets, and also worked at Davis Squared, an indie shop in Davis Square. That was my first real exposure to small indie retail. I thought that was enough for me. I’d just go do the sustainability stuff I was studying and teach more.
But Bow Market opened, and many of my art market friends opened shops there. I was working various jobs in the building—helping at Remnant, staffing for friends—and then my friend who owned the original stationery shop at Bow Market, Calliope Paperie, needed help. I became her “Thursday girl.”
When she decided to give up her lease and focus on her Natick store, I realized how much I liked this community. Bow Market has like thirty independently owned businesses, great diversity, and it’s close to Inman Square where Gather Here is. It felt like a great community to be part of. That’s how Tiny Turns opened. It wasn’t a lifelong dream—it was timing, people, and a community I wanted to be part of.
Trish: Yeah, I love that. I work with college students who get so nervous about finding “the one thing.” What’s cool about your story is you followed your interests, shared what you were working on, collaborated—and that’s how you got where you are.
Jen: I think coming from my background, it's difficult not to have a set plan. My dad owns his own business, so he understood the entrepreneurial stuff. He gets small shop ownership more than he ever understood corporate finance. Meanwhile my mom is very much “do the right thing, get the next job, have health insurance, be secure.” All very important, but she was nervous when I left the traditional path.
I wish I'd had the courage to leave earlier—to try the things I was being pulled toward sooner. Life’s so short.
Trish: Yeah, it's funny. So many immigrants are entrepreneurial, but when they get here, they're like: “Okay, we made this giant life leap. Let's be safe now.” You're doing this huge thing by immigrating, you'd think it would encourage more risk-taking, but instead—health insurance! Which is understandable.
Jen: Is important.
Trish: Yeah. And how did you come up with the name of your store?
Jen: So funny. One of the in-between things I did was being part of a letterpress collaborative. We had an umbrella name, and each designer had their own imprint. Mine was “One Thousand Tiny Turns.” Partly because when you’re using an antique letterpress, there are lots of little adjustments—tiny turns. But the real story is that I was with my cousin from New Jersey, who is a terrible parallel parker. She was trying to park forever, and the guy behind her was reading a newspaper, totally oblivious. I was cracking up like, “This man hasn’t even noticed the thousand tiny turns it took for you to park.” The phrase stuck. So when I needed an imprint, it fit. Completely unrelated—but perfect.
Trish: So it’s low-key shade.
Jen: It's low-key shade to my cousin. Shoutout to the Jersey Filipinos who can't parallel park.
Trish: I mean, listeners, I’m raising my hand as a Jersey Filipino.
Jen: And the reason Tiny Turns fit for the store was because the shop at Bow Market was 163 square feet—just barely bigger than a 10x10 tent. So if you’ve seen those white art market tents—that was the size of my store.
Trish: And what was the impetus to go from that “tent” to your full-size store now, carrying other people’s products?
Jen: A mix of good luck and bad luck. The bad luck: COVID. I opened Tiny Turns in April 2019. The shutdown happened one month before our first anniversary. We had to close—stationery isn’t essential, and 163 square feet can’t have six-foot distancing. While figuring out what to do, I drove Instagram orders around in my Subaru.
The spot next to us was empty—a rotating community space. The landlords were creative and forward thinking. They asked if I’d take the risk of knocking down the wall to make it 300 square feet, which could be viable when reopening became possible. I said yes.
It saved the store.
COVID also forced me to hire my first full-time employee. I luckily qualified for a job-creator grant from Somerville that covered three months of her salary. She got everything online so we could do pickup orders, organized inventory, and helped us prepare to expand artist offerings. When we reopened, we could have four people in the store at a time—which felt huge.
If we’d stayed at 163 square feet, I don't know if we’d have made it.
Then Bow Market expanded. The space we’re in now—850 square feet—is part of that expansion. It connects to Remnant’s back courtyard. All the businesses here are original Bow Market businesses. It’s nice to still be part of the community that supported us from the start.
Trish: Yeah, that’s such a core part of being Filipino—the community aspect. I always joke as a kid like, “Mom, how many people are we actually related to?” because everyone is auntie or cousin. Community is huge. And it feels like it’s huge in your business too. Even the stationery crawl—you’d think in other fields you’d be competitors, but it seems like you’re very collaborative.
Jen: Yeah. Stationery shops are friends across the globe. We visit each other. I’m really good friends with The Paper Mouse in West Newton—we send customers to each other. Same with Filipino business owners—we’re always trying to collaborate.
At Bow Market there has always been a Filipino business. Before me there was Tanam. Now Nibble Kitchen has a Filipino chef on Wednesdays and Fridays. We’ve done a lot of Filipino community events. I actually didn’t know how to make a parol until Bow Market. I taught myself so I could teach others for an event Ellie wanted to run. It’s become our most popular workshop—we’ve done it every year except last year.
We just didn't have a space to do it last year, and we did two in October. We're going to do another one in December. I think it's going to be an annual thing. I just met some other Filipino cafe owners and I'm like, I can bring it to your shop too if you want to do it sometimes. So we're trying to figure out how to get people together and figure it out.
Trish: Yeah. That's awesome. So heading into this holiday season, you're- I love the store. So you have everything from gadgets to protest posters to cards to all the pens and the entire universe of different widths and colors and things. For the podcast listeners, there's product behind Jen too. So I'm looking at all these other things.
Jen: These Christmas candles behind me.
Trish: Yeah, yeah. Are there fun things when people come to the store, and they're like, hey, I'm trying to give a unique gift or something that is local. Do you suggest certain things to folks?
Jen: Well, so one of my favorite parts of being a shop owner is to be able to figure out, like, what fits the person or what they're looking for. So it's kind of hard to say that I always recommend XYZ because we have a lot of different fountain pens, and like fountain pen is a personal kind of thing.
Trish: Super personal.
Jen: I’m having conversations with people like, how do you like to write? Like, how much do you want to spend? Like, are you looking for an everyday thing or something special that's going to sit at your desk? And it's kind of the same with every category of thing that we have in terms of, are you looking for something that's seasonal for your holiday decor, or are you looking for something that you want to have up year-round? Like, are you looking for something hyperlocal to Somerville? Like a lot of our Fluff things are Somerville-specific. Yeah. So, it's hard for me to say. It's like, almost like picking a favorite child. But I like that we have a little bit of something for anyone. And it really makes me happy when somebody says that there's something spoke to them, or it looks like the perfect gift for their best friend, their wife, their husband, their kid, it's a nice, unique challenge.
And almost everything we have is linked to an independent person somewhere. Yeah. So even our things that you think of as like, oh, well, that's a national brand or an international brand. Usually the person who's bringing it to the United States is like one family somewhere. It's kind of fun having learned, and I'm friends with a lot of our suppliers now. I know a lot of the artists personally, so it's really easy for me to tell you the story behind the thing that you're buying if you want to spend the time to talk about it. I like that part of it a lot.
Trish: Yeah. So two things. One, if anyone's listening that doesn't know Fluff was invented in Somerville. Yeah. So just want to put that out there. Anytime I talk about it people are like, what are you like what? Like, yes. The spreadable marshmallow-ish stuff was invented in Somerville, Massachusetts. Um, and two, I also dodge recommending certain things too, because I'm always like a filter of like, okay, what time of day is this going to be? You like, who is this person? Where do they live? Are they traveling? Will they have to pack this in a suitcase like it's…
Jen: Yeah.
Trish: So many things. Okay, so you got out of that one because people should just go to the store and then talk to you or one of your employees about what the perfect gift might be. But I remember going in and having gone to your Bow Market spot and being like, oh, there's a lot of stuff here. You can probably spend an hour just going through all the stuff.
Jen: We have a variety of choices, and it's amazing to me because we started out with maybe forty different artists, and now we have easily two thousand different…
Trish: Wow.
Jen: Yeah.
Trish: That's incredible. So you're not, people are not just supporting local, they're supporting you. They're also supporting thousands of artists. So what's coming up? I know that you have an event coming up in early December. Can you tell us a little about that and then any other events that you want to plug too?
Jen: Cool. Yeah. We have actually a bunch of different fun events that are coming up because it is a holiday season and we lean into that really hard. So we kick it off with Small Business Saturday on the 29th, we'll have fifteen independent visiting makers that are going to be scattered throughout Bow Market and Union Tavern, and then all of the different businesses are going to have specials. I always put together like a bingo card. So if you shop independent or eat independent within Bow Market, you get entered to win. You do a bingo, you get a prize, and you get entered into a raffle for a grand prize, which is a collection of things from different businesses at Bow Market.
And then on December 4th, we're doing a craft night with our neighbors on the second floor. And you can come for free, make a card, make a friendship bracelet. It's just a get-together from five to eight, and we'll probably have a little donation if you want to contribute. We're going to fill the community fridge with whatever donations we collect that night.
And then December 7th is the Union Square Holiday Jingle. So we'll have lots of different giveaways and fun prizes. And we're actually partnering with our neighbors down the street at Aeronaut to do another maker market. There are nine independent artists from the local area selling in their beer hall.
And then on December 10th, we are doing our parol event, and we're partnering with Sinta Restaurant. Carol is an amazing chef, and the featured dish that she doesn't have on her regular menu that will be available that night is pork sinigang. But she always has chicken adobo. She always has lechon kawali and vegetarian pancit. So for that one, it's really great because you can pick your level of craft and your level of food. So we have a feast option, which is dinner, lumpia, a drink from Remnant, and a coloring page. But the other two craft ones, you get lumpia, you get a drink, and then you get either the parol craft, or you can do a smaller paper star ornament craft, and you can add on the sinigang or the adobo or whatever if you want to make it a full meal. But if you just want a snack and a craft and a drink, you can do it that way if you want a feast and just to hang, we have rolling ticket times so that you can come and hang, or you can do a quick craft and eat your food and do what you want. But the October ones that we did of it were super fun, and I didn't realize how many people were new to the area and looking for other Filipinos. And I'm excited to see how many people come back for this version and how many new people will get to meet for that. So those are in the coming weeks. There's probably more that I'm forgetting that's coming up later in December because we're just constantly doing stuff.
Trish: No, I love it. We'll link it in the blog too, so that people so people know they're trying to find all things or just follow you on Instagram. Yeah, to get all the info. Sweet. So we like to end the podcast with giving some shout outs to other Filipinos, Filipino Americans that are doing something great in the scene. And who would you like to give a shout out to?
Jen: So I know I just mentioned her, but I want to shout out Caryl Lu at Sinta. She quit her full-time job at, or she moved to part time, I should say, at Sarma. So she's a super talented chef, and she's trying to bring the Filipino flavors to everyday cooking. And what I like about what she's doing is it's like a lot of times I think, which I also love, because I love any iteration of Filipino food that's going to be coming out and available. But she's more traditional. She's doing traditional flavors. So you really do feel like, oh, this is very classic, but it's somehow elevated because she is such a talented chef and affordable and accessible. She's done a lot of different fun things. And so I'm hoping that this residency at Nibble means that she'll be doing a permanent, longer-term thing moving forward.
And I know you asked for one, but I also want to shout out Jeff from Johnny Boy Eats because I feel like he's also doing really cool, fun things. And I know that he's working on a more permanent project in Chinatown that I'm super excited to see what comes out of that. And people who are not familiar with Johnny Boy Eats, they were doing Filipino breakfast sandwiches. So fried chicken adobo.
Trish: Out of Ellie's space. Right out of Tanam, right?
Jen: Yeah. So they started as a pop-up at Tanam, and they did sort of a half-year or maybe nine-month residency at the Juliet Social Club, and they found a partner who's making some fire pandesal. So I hope they're going to keep doing what they're doing with their sandwiches. But I think maybe with a permanent spot, they might be doing a more full menu, Jeff’s being a little bit mysterious about what it's all going to be. But I like both ends of what they're doing because Jeff’s definitely pushing the envelope a little bit, but still very clear Filipino flavors. And Caryl is doing, I don't want to say straightforward because that makes it sound boring, but it's so good. Her food is, if you want lumpia, the lumpia you're going to get is going to be the lumpia that you're expecting. And it's. Yeah. I'm excited to see all the different things that she might be able to do when she's not just doing a pop up. Yeah.
Trish: Yeah. I mean, I think it is a little bit of a struggle when- I'm glad you didn't say the word authentic, because I think people that are outside the culture, they're like, oh, is it authentic Filipino food? Like if Filipinos are making it, it's authentic. Just yeah, don't worry about it. But it is really cool to see people that are, because I think there are so many chefs and folks out there that are creating really great spins and really owning, you know, Filipino food in a way that injects their personality and how they cook. But it is interesting that there isn't a lot of folks that are like, oh, let's, let's kind of go for that comfort food where you're eating and you're like, you know, don't tell, don't tell Tita or Lola. But this is kind of their food or better…
Jen: Kind of better.
Trish: Historically, we've had all these like kind of mixes. So it is really comforting to see that, in addition to everything else that other folks are working on. Also, like.
Jen: Give me all the Filipino food.
Trish: Every single version of Filipino food. But also is there someone Filipino at Bow Market, or are they just like, come, come on down Filipinos because shout out to Bow Market.
Jen: Yeah, no there isn't as far as I know. I don't want to say surprising because I want it to be a regular thing, but it's very refreshing that they're… No one at the Bow Market ownership level is of the culture or of a lot of different things, but they support so many cultures and their. Yeah, yeah.
Trish: It is a very diverse market.
Jen: They’re always looking for ways to let people highlight what they're doing in a way that feels sincere. I think they sincerely are just into the idea that small is beautiful. There's strength in diversity, and that all opinions can help us build a better community. And so having been here for most of it, it hasn't always been the easiest, smoothest ride. And it never will be when there's that many different needs and voices to accommodate. But I'm really happy that I've been able to grow in place, because I don't know that I could focus on a lot of the community things that we are able to do. If I didn't have the infrastructure around me to help support that. And so…
Trish: Oh yeah, and rent is the whole it's like fundraising. It's a whole other job, is finding the right spot.
Jen: Yeah, exactly. And finding the right spot and finding all the other things besides rent that you have to consider. It's, um, I’ll talk to anybody about it, about why there are one hundred things you don't think about when you're opening a brick and mortar, and why it's nice to find a place that can help you work through that. Because even without Bow Market, Union Square itself has a lot of things in place that help build support structures for folks, and with a specific bent on focusing on keeping the immigrant-owned businesses that made Somerville cool, able to stay here. And so that's a neat thing that doesn't happen everywhere. And I try to remember that and appreciate it because it's tough. It's been a tough year.
Trish: Well thank you Jen so much for being on the podcast. We're so excited for all the things you're working on. Please everyone shop small, support local businesses. And we're just so appreciative of all the work that you do in the community, and to uplift other Filipinos in the community as well.
Jen: Thank you so much. I'm really glad that we were able to chat.
