This is the paper I submitted as the final paper for the Winter Quarter Comparative Eurasian Foodways program. It will be included with major edits in the culminating paper I submit at the end of the academic year, serving as a jumping-off point\/introduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is becoming widely understood that\na slow but steady shift in how we think about food has been occurring. With\nroots in social activism in the 1960s, building in such loci as Alice Waters\u2019\norganic, locavore-minded Chez Panisse, opened in 1971, and with a burgeoning\nbody of scholarship in the twenty-first century, modern progressive food\nmovements (an umbrella term which includes various efforts such as an emphasis\non locally-sourced ingredients, sustainability, farmworker justice, etc.) have\nbeen quietly gaining steam for decades. Recently, writers like Michael Pollan,\nMarion Nestle, and Eric Schlosser have furthered popular awareness of the\nnecessity of these movements, along with the efforts of celebrity chefs and the\nexplosion of food as entertainment in popular culture. Despite all of this attention\nand awareness, there has been much criticism\u2014scholarly and otherwise\u2014of the\ninaccessibility of some of these movements, entwined with their overwhelming\n\u201cwhite-ness.\u201d As John Burdick puts it in an article on race politics in food\npedagogy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2026by frequently utilizing discourses of\npastoralism, localism, purity, a premium placed on agricultural labor, and an\nidealized image of a lush agricultural past, many of the advocates of the Food\nMovement have conjured a romanticized and whitewashed vision of American\nagriculture.\u201d <\/em>(Burdick, 2014)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though\nspeaking specifically here about the agricultural aspect of food networks,\nBurdick\u2019s point remains true across the board. There are many branches of the\n\u201cFood Movement,\u201d with emphases on food justice, food security, food\nsovereignty, but the ones that garner the most public attention are\nsustainability, organic certification, and locality. These three are at the\nforefront of popular discussion, but arguably lend themselves most to\nwhitewashing and inaccessibility. As many of us know from our visits to grocery\nstores and\/or farmers\u2019 markets, the increase in perceived quality that comes\nfrom these labels comes with a directly correlated uptick in price. As a\nresult, communities with little wealth and social mobility\u2014disproportionally\nthose of color and immigrants\u2014become excluded from the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nimmigrants in particular, the picture becomes even more muddled. For many\nfamilies transplanted to U.S. shores, a desire to assimilate and become \u201cAmerican\u201d\nis balanced with the need to maintain the tradition of their homeland. It is a\nstruggle that differs from community to community, household to household,\nindividual to individual. But this, like the rest of human experience, is inextricably\ntied to food culture. Performance of identity, whether in regards to\n\u201cAmerican-ness\u201d or to the identity of the motherland, is most prominent and\npressing in the choices made in terms of food preparation. Are we having\nempanadas for dinner, or macaroni and cheese? Are the dumplings stuffed with\nred bean paste or are they Pizza Pockets out of the freezer? Do we go to\nSafeway or to the H-Mart across town? These questions and more are at the fore\nof many immigrants\u2019 minds as they navigate the potentially treacherous avenues\nof a new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These\ncommunities often do not share the idealistic priorities of the advocates of\nprogressive food movements. Partially because of this, and partially because of\ndeep-seated perceptions and realities of racial boundaries, immigrant\ncommunities assume a certain level of exclusion from alternative food networks.\nRachel Slocum points out that \u201cwhile the ideals of healthy food, people, and\nland are not intrinsically white, the objectives, tendencies, strategies, the\nemphases and absences and the things overlooked in [alternative] food make them\nso.\u201d (Slocum, 2007) A student of Alison Hope Alkon, professor of sociology at\nUniversity of the Pacific, reflects a common mode of thinking as she reflects\nin a paper for Alkon\u2019s class:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have always thought of farmers\u2019 markets\nbeing expensive and full of white people. Therefore, I have never really gone\nto them\u2026I do however go to flea markets and the Asian farmers\u2019 market\u2026but to be\nhonest I never even thought of it as being a farmers\u2019 market. I thought of it\nas more like an open-air market\u2026because it is open way too early in the\nmorning, there are not that many white customers or vendors, and the food is\ncheap.\u201d<\/em> (Alkon and Vang, 390)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we can\nsee, immigrants and communities of color will often exclude their own\nalternative food work from the larger movement, because they do not identify\nwith the framework that has been created in that narrative. While the food\npriorities for immigrants often include affordability and the ability to find\ningredients from the homeland, the larger food movement zeroes in on buzzwords like\n\u201corganic\u201d and \u201clocal.\u201d In many ways, these are at odds. For the food we\npurchase at the store to be labeled organic requires an expensive certification\nprocess that not only makes the final product less affordable\u2014and therefore\ninaccessible or undesirable to those with less means\u2014but also can be\nprohibitive for small-scale farmers entering the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The topic of locality, in the context\nof the immigrant population discussion, calls for even more scrutiny. In\nresponse to the ever more apparent damaging consequences of the modern, global\nindustrial food system, food movement advocates have embraced and supported\nefforts to bring food sourcing more close to home. Slow Food International,\nwith chapters all over the world, is just one example of an organization born\nof the growing focus on \u201cbuying local.\u201d As the foundational Slow Food Manifesto\nstates, \u201cTo escape the tediousness of \u2018fast-food,\u2019 let us rediscover the rich\nvarieties and aromas of local cuisines.\u201d (\u201cSlow Food Manifesto\u201d). Though\napparently a worthwhile pursuit, this angle tends to gloss over the realities\nof transnational life, in which millions of people whether by choice or\ncoercion find themselves in far-reaching locales, distant from their places of origin.\nValiente-Neighbours points out that \u201cthe local food literature\u2019s focus on the\neffects of globalization and industrialization on the food system lacks a critical\ntransnational perspective because it overlooks the movement of people\nnecessitated by those processes.\u201d (531) The \u201clocal\u201d rhetoric also generally\nignores the fact that \u201ca call to eat locally invokes spaces that have been\nsettled, colonized, ruptured, and remade through complex processes of human\nmovement and environmental history making.\u201d (Mares and Pe\u00f1a, 198)<\/p>\n\n\n\n For an example of a transnational\ncommunity, I have focused my research efforts on Filipinos in the United\nStates. \u201cTransnationalism\u201d can be defined as a term which \u201cdescribes how\nimmigrants who live in one place still nurture \u2018home ties\u2019 in their country of\norigin alongside efforts at integration into their country of residence.\u201d (Valiente-Neighbours,\n533) I know from personal experience that the Filipinx community is a prime\nexample of this. For more objective proof, one only needs to turn to the\nsignificance of foreign remittances in the Philippine GDP\u2014just over 10% in\n2018, which amounts to over 33 billion dollars. (The Global Economy<\/em>) This is a testament to the strong connections\nbetween OFW\u2019s (Overseas Filipino Workers) and the small island nation from\nwhence they came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we as a global society are to move forward in terms of creating more sustainable and just food systems, it seems necessary that we strive to include all<\/em> people in those efforts. In the scratching of the surface I have done in this research, it appears that there are no clear answers to the question of reconciling these differences. Most people can agree that it is important to uphold cultural tradition and identity, but this is also an act that inherently draws boundaries, which can serve to impede\u2014or at least make more difficult\u2014a unified movement to improve our food systems. To \u201cimprove\u201d in this context can mean many different things, some of which erode the achievements of others. It is my argument that although there are numerous difficulties in establishing cultural identity as a fundamental pillar of progressive food movements, it may be that Filipinx-American cuisine is more well-suited to the effort than others.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Culinary tradition is rooted in place<\/em>. Cuisine is born of the climate and the set of raw ingredients naturally available, which eventually evolves into a codified repertoire of preparations and, finally, into a tradition that can theoretically be transplanted from its place of origin. With such movements come complications. How can one prepare a Ghanian fufu<\/em>, Egyptian fattah<\/em>, or a Japanese yosenabe<\/em> without plantains, mastic, or bonito flakes, respectively? In the modern era, one can find \u201cexotic\u201d ingredients with far more ease than in the past, especially in urban areas. But what of the issue of \u201cfood miles?\u201d It would seem that a Ghanian mother preparing her traditional recipes for her family here in the United States necessitates going against the fundamental principles of the locavore movement. A simple and oft-turned-to answer to this is to find local ingredients to substitute with. This is a significant choice to make. The primary reasons for preparing traditional dishes often include enacting memories of childhood, evoking memories of distant or lost family members, and introducing cultural history to foreign-born children\u2014what happens to the effect and affect of these actions as ingredients and methods are shifted out? The next generation begins to think of a particular <\/a>recipe with those new ingredients, and the tradition\u2014the cultural narrative\u2014begins to become lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bearing all of this in mind, I turn\nto Filipinx cuisine, which may prove to be unique with regards to translocal\nadaptation. It begins with the Philippines\u2019 particular history of ethnic\nmixing, its colonial\/imperial relations with Western powers, and its modern status\nas a nation with a pan-global diaspora of OFW\u2019s. When Ferdinand Magellan first\nlaid eyes on the Philippine archipelago in 1521, the collection of over seven\nthousand islands were already home to a wide variety of peoples. \u201cDissimilarity\nalso characterizes the Philippine people. They speak eight different languages\nand some seventy dialects, and the linguistic jumble is only one clue to their\nvariety.\u201d (Karnow, 38) Malay people had been residents of the islands for\nthousands of years, while Chinese traders, Muslim missionaries, and other\nSoutheast Asian cultures had had a presence there for centuries. The influences\nof these various traditions still have their marks in Philippine language and\nculinary tradition. (Karnow, 38-39)<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Spanish colonial rule began in\nthe 16th<\/sup> century, the colonizers not only brought Spanish culinary\ninfluence, but that of indigenous Mexican peoples as well. Their three-century\npresence in the islands explains the ubiquity of Hispanic surnames and dishes,\nthough many of the latter have evolved to such an extent that the similarity to\nthe original extends no farther than the name. This was the state of things\nwhen American imperialism stepped in at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century,\nwith its particular brand of industry and haughty belief in benevolent\nsuperiority. Through the establishment of an American educational system with a\nheavy emphasis on \u201cdomestic science,\u201d the US rapidly reworked the state of\nFilipinx cuisine: \u201c[In domestic science classes,] students were taught the\nnutritional superiority of refined sugars, red meats like beef, animal fats,\nhydrogenated fats like shortenings, and highly processed foods.\u201d (Mabalon, 153)<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time Filipinx people were\nimmigrating to the United States in significant numbers, they were already\ncarrying with them a culinary \u201ctradition\u201d that was comprised of myriad sources\nfrom all over the globe. This already multi-faceted gustatory quilt was further\nelaborated here in the US by \u201cthe lack of Philippine ingredients; conditions in\nthe fields and canneries where Filipinas\/os were forced to cook and eat; the\nabundance of unfamiliar yet delicious local foods foraged from the land and\nwater; the coming together of [various Filipinx identities]; and their\nmigratory life\u2026\u201d (Mabalon, 171) Instead of being based on ingredients tied to a\nparticular place, \u201ctradition\u201d for Filipinx peoples came to be enacted by the\nmethod and spirit of preparation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Doreen Fernandez describes this as\nthe \u201cindigenizing process\u201d in Filipinx cuisine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026Filipino saut\u00e9ing, however, has become set\ninto a pattern: heat the oil; saut\u00e9 the garlic till golden brown; add the\nonions and saut\u00e9 till soft and transparent; add the sliced tomatoes and saut\u00e9\ntill cooked\u2026this preliminary process can Filipinize anything\u2014cauliflower,\nleftover fish, scrambled eggs, noodles, <\/em>paella, and even canned mackerel from Japan.\u201d<\/em> (Fernandez, 224)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea is that, due to the nature\nof the culinary history of the Philippine islands, control over the traditional\nnarrative has to be enacted in the moment of commensality. In other words, when\nso many players are vying for space in your own cultural history, what better\nplace to practice reifying of self than at the dinner table? Fernandez goes on\nto articulate how the practice of sawsawan<\/em>\u2014the\n\u201cgalaxy of flavor adjusters\u201d\u2014always allows the Filipinx eater to participate in\na meal, and make it their own particular experience. (225) Tables are set with\nan array of vinegars, chili sauces, miso, and bagoong<\/em> (shrimp paste), all of which are permitted to be added to\nthe main dishes without fear of retribution from the Filipinx chef. This\nmentality of a cooperative experience between the preparer and the consumer of\nthe meal makes for a more flexible, identity-reinforcing process. Between the\nmethods of cooking and the methods of eating, a Filipinx meal\u2014an experience\nwhich in itself provides an opportunity to enact cultural identity\u2014can be made\nanywhere, with any ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this moment in time, it is\ndifficult to articulate one correct manner with which to move the ideals of\nprogressive food movements forward\u2014particularly if our goal is to include\ncultural identity among the tenets of the movement. Advocates for positive\nchange lean towards a desire to homogenize, to consider \u201cprogress\u201d only if\nparticular priorities are highlighted. It would be easy to say that shopping at\nthe Asian market for produce shipped across oceans violates fundamental\nprinciples of Slow Food, or that because certain immigrant communities cannot\nafford organic foods means that they do not participate in alternative food\nnetworks. The situation is more complex than that. Enacting cultural identity\nis vital to the transmission of specific embodied knowledges; cultural and\ncognitive frameworks that may have originated in a particular place but if they\nare to survive must be supported. Though it may be true that \u201cmany Filipino\nAmerican elders caution the younger generation not to identify as Filipino\u2026[and]\nstrive toward Whiteness and assimilation,\u201d those younger generations\u2014particularly\nthose born abroad\u2014strive to reconnect to the cultural values they see as\nlacking in their geographic locale. (Tuason et al. 362) <\/p>\n\n\n\n This process of reconnection is most\nsimply and most firmly performed in the everyday act of preparing and eating\nfood. it may be impossible to fully reconcile the priorities and foodways of\nimmigrant populations with those of burgeoning progressive food movements.\nHowever, it seems that the inherent flexibility unique to Filipinx cuisine\nallows it to fit more readily within the movements\u2019 frameworks, which may serve\nas a foot in the door for other transnational cultures seeking to both promote\nidentity and improve our food systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the paper I submitted as the final paper for the Winter Quarter Comparative Eurasian Foodways program. 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