Sam Gosda
Response 1 of 5: Introduction: Food in Multi-ethnic Literatures
Food is arguably the biggest center of culture, society, and community. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner in America have always been times to gather and connect with those around you. Author of “Introduction: Food in Multi-Ethnic Literatures”, Wenying Zu, argues that meals are also a way to connect to one’s ethnic past. She supports this thought with many references to other authors and their works. Together they form a picture of the American immigrant experience through food from being forced to assimilate to even the meals of America to pushing back to keep the foods of their homeland. While Zu is wordy at times, the amount of evidence she accumulates in indisputable.
Zu uses her article to prove that ethnic literature expresses the connection of food and culture along with the evolution of this connection during the beginning of immigration into the United States. She cites numerous pieces of literature that “consider the diversity of American cuisine and its impact on changing notions of American culture” (6). Immigrants used to be persecuted if they ate foods that were considered “anti-American” (Zu, 6). To stick to their roots immigrants made and ate the meals that they typically prepared in their native country. However, these foods were seen as unsophisticated and distasteful to the Americans. There were movements to try to get immigrants to eat more typically American foods. Zu focuses on Italian immigrants and their meals of spaghetti and flavorings of hot peppers. Americans tried to revolutionize these eating habits to assimilate the Italian immigrants into American life and American consumerism. Zu explains that this reform of an immigrant’s diet “was not simply an effort to assimilate him or her into mainstream American culture; it was also an effort to turn him or her into a capitalist consumer” (9). The forced assimilation to American food was a double edged sword; one side to rid the immigrants of their differences to the established American life and the other to get them to buy into American capitalism for continued financial support of the established culture. Immigrants began to play large roles in the food industry of America. Their backs were used the stepping stone of the industry. The prosperity of American food industry has commonly coincided with the impoverishment of the working immigrant.
The plight of the immigrant diet during the 1940s is explained by Wenying Zu through numerous citations of literary works by numerous authors and editors. Some seem superfluous and make the introduction harder to follow. In the bibliography at the conclusion of the article twelve works are cited, however, there are over twenty titles referenced in the 6 pages of writing. Not all of them are quoted and her writing could be made stronger by focusing on only the articles that are quoted. The addition of multiple titles, most of the time shown all in one sentence, is distracting from the point of the sentence. Zu’s article may not be long enough to give justice to each one so instead they become confusing. That being said, the representation of so many articles that agree with the thesis of food shaping immigrant life in America is very powerful. It connects with our class’s discussion on our multicultural city. New York, although not the focus of the article, is very easily linked to all of the topics discussed in it. Immigrants have evolved the diet of every New Yorker instead of letting pressure to assimilate erase their culture. They make it possible for even people like myself, who have no other connection to any other culture or country except America, to enjoy foods from every culture and inspired by every country all in one city.
Questions:
- What immigrant food or eating habit is still looked at as distasteful today in America?
- Why is food the everlasting cultural signifier over things such as fashion or even language?
