This is a practice that’s about as American as apple pie—accusing immigrant and minority communities of engaging in bizarre or disgusting behaviors regarding what and how they eat and drink, a kind of shorthand for saying they don’t belong here.
The latest iteration came during the presidential debate on Tuesday, when former President Donald Trump pointed to a false internet uproar concerning the Haitian immigrant community in Springfield, Ohio, writes AP. He repeated an unfounded claim, previously spread by his vice president, JD Vance, that immigrants were stealing dogs and cats, precious pets of their American neighbors, and eating them.
This drew enough attention that officials had to intervene to debunk it, stating there was no credible evidence of such acts. But while it may be stomach-turning, these kinds of food-based accusations are not new. Far from it.
Contempt and insults related to food were thrown at immigrant Chinese communities on the West Coast in the late 1800s when they began arriving in the United States in greater numbers, and in later decades, they spread to other Asian and Pacific Islander communities like the Thai or Vietnamese.
As recently as last year, a Thai restaurant in California was hit with such a stereotype, which sparked such an outpouring of undeserved anger that the owner had to close and move to another location. Underlying this is the idea that “you are engaging in something that’s not just a matter of taste but a violation of what it means to be human,” says Paul Freedman, a history professor at Yale University.
By portraying Chinese immigrants as people who would eat things Americans would reject, it made them “others”.
In the U.S., food can be a flashpoint
Other communities, while not accused of eating pets, have been criticized for the perceived strangeness of their cooking when they were newcomers, such as Italians using too much garlic or Indians too much curry powder.
Minority groups with longer presences in the country have also not been exempt from racist stereotypes — derogatory references to Mexicans and beans or insulting African Americans with remarks about fried chicken and watermelon.
“There’s an insult for almost every ethnicity based on some type of food they eat,” says Amy Bentley, professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University. “And it’s a very effective way of putting people down”.
That’s because food isn’t just sustenance. Embedded in people’s dietary habits are some of the very building blocks of culture—things that make different peoples distinct, and which can be exploited as fodder for ethnic hatred or political diatribes.
“We need it to survive, but it’s also very ritualized and very symbolic. So birthday cake, anniversaries, things are marked and celebrated with food and drink,” Bentley says. “It’s so highly integrated into all parts of our lives”.
Huge Servings at the Popular Chinese Restaurants© Japanese Noodles Udon Soba Osaka Nara / Youtube channel
And because “there are specific variations on how people do those rituals, how they eat, how they’ve shaped their cuisines, how they eat their food,” she adds, “it can be a topic of togetherness … or it can be a form of sharp division”.
The insults can also come from — eating with hands or chopsticks instead of forks and knives, for example. This can be seen in class biases toward poorer people who didn’t have the same access to elaborate table settings or couldn’t afford to eat the way the wealthy did — and used different, perhaps unfamiliar ingredients out of necessity.
Such belittlement can extend directly to current events. During the Second Gulf War, for example, Americans angry at France’s opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq began calling French fries “freedom fries”.
And a common slur in the United States for Germans during the first two World Wars was “krauts”—an attack on a culture in which sauerkraut was traditional food. “What was wrong with the way urban immigrants ate?” Donna R.
Gabaccia wrote in her 1998 book *We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans*. Reflecting on the views of the early 20th century and its demands for “100% Americanism,” she noted that “sauerkraut became ‘victory cabbage,’” and one report lamented an Italian family that “still eats spaghetti, still hasn’t assimilated”.
These stereotypes have persisted despite the fact that the American palate has significantly broadened in recent decades, thanks in part to the influx of these immigrant communities, with grocery stores offering a wealth of ingredients that would have baffled previous generations.
The rise of restaurant culture has introduced many diners to authentic examples of cuisines that might have required a passport to access in other eras. Ultimately, Bentley says, “when immigrants migrate to another country, they bring their food with them and maintain it as much as they can.
… It’s so reminiscent of family, community, home. They’re just really material, multisensory manifestations of who we are”. Haitian food is just one example of that. Communities like those in New York and South Florida have added to the culinary landscape, using ingredients such as goat, plantains, and cassava.
So when Trump said that immigrants in Springfield—whom he called “people who came”—are eating dogs and cats and “the pets of the people who live there,” the echoes of his remarks played not just on food, but on culture itself.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66e71fab2eeb4d24a0649e12785eff11&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.financial-world.org%2Fnews%2Fnews%2Fcrimes%2F27326%2Ffrom-chinese-to-italians-america-s-long-history-of-cultural-insults-through-food%2F&c=17958955352897125347&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-09-13 01:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
