When White People Shame Your Culture's Food-Then Make It Trendy Summary

Rice for Thanksgiving by Jocelyn Fong states that what comes to her mind with Thanksgiving celebration is her grandma’s eleven children poring turkey gravy over rice and the way she feels and relates to the representation of different cultures. Likewise, the reason why she has this image of Thanksgiving is that of the different roots of cultures she has, she has Asian, American, and Anglo influences in relation to culture. First, Fong was confused about what she must fit into a culture completely and that only was related to foods and traditions; this thought was influenced the generation of her grandma’s parents with the political issues and government applications in the United States where Chinese people were considered illegal immigrants

Food can partially shape a person's cultural identity. Geeta Kothari explores the cultural nuances between American and Indian food in the essay, “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” She expresses this through the symbolism of food, growing up and living between two different cultures. Kothari begins her story as a nine-year-old child curiously wanting to eat the same foods as American children: tuna salad sandwiches and hot dogs. She does not have the guidance from her mother regarding American food and culture. Kothari’s mom curbs the curiosity by reluctantly letting her daughter indulge in a can of tuna fish. Kothari describes the open can of tuna fish as “pink and shiny, like an internal organ” and she wondered if it was botulism (947). The way

In “Fish Cheeks”, the author Amy Tan uses details and diction to reveal that an embarrassing experience in her youth changed how she thought about her family’s heritage by making her realize that her feelings of shame were based on other people’s responses more than on her own feelings. By using vivid details, the author reveals how humiliating the dinner was for her. For instance, the author wonders what will happen when Robert finds “not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food”. Tan portrays how she supposes Robert will react when he comes across the peculiar feast. This indicates how Tan concludes that Robert will indeed feel dissatisfied and disturbed by her culture’s food.

To begin, I found what she spoke about for a majority of the article was unrelatable. “It’s no longer a foreign concept to lunch at a banh mi carryout and then settle in for a dinner of Filipino sisig and end a night at a gelato shop, splitting an affogato.” No one I know is going out of there way to “lunch at banh mi” or to “settle in for a dinner of Filipino sisig”. I am sure she could have used more relatable examples so her audience could better relate. That being said I can guarantee I am not her target audience, with this in mind I cannot speak on behalf of her audience. Then again if she would like to expand her target audience to a larger crowd she should speak about more relatable foods that still support her main

One challenge she had while trying to adapt to a new culture was that there was new food that she had never eaten. “I bite down on a thigh; might as well bite down on bread soaked in water. Still, I force yum-yum sounds.” (Lai, pg. 121). This quote supports the challenge of a new culture because, in Vietnam, the chicken is freshly killed whereas in America the chicken is very different, in taste, texture, and smell.

There will be many unfamiliar things around an ethnic grocery store, even the employees or people that shop there might be common nationality or familiar to the items in the store. In this experience is comparing and contrasting the unfamiliar foods, spices, seasonings and many other things that are unfamiliar to oneself. This experience exploring an ethnic grocery store, you learn that ethnic grocery stores mostly support their cultural foods, where they originated from. Keywords: food, grocery, store, cultural, ethnic, experience, unfamiliar, familiar, spices, seasonings Ethnic Grocery Store Visit: Tropicana Supermarket On this assignment, I visit

Something as simple as a food influenced how she saw herself and beyond that into the changing patterns in society. She recounts the contrasting ideas about the diversity of culture throughout history. When she recounts her own experiences in saying, “I learned heritage is something to be celebrated” then her grandmothers, “the central focus of American immigration policy was keeping the Chinese out”, she is acknowledging that we are living in different times than those her grandmother lived through. Fong came to her new understanding of how truly American she is. With the two sides of her family’s history, Fong is able to say that she can see how strong her heritage is even if she does not know how to speak Cantonese or celebrate the Chinese New Year. She sees her culture is both Chinese and American no matter what box she

In “The Myth of the Latin Woman” and “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” the subject of feeling like an outcast due to being of a non-white culture is examined. From the perspectives of two different women from two separate cultures (Puerto Rican and Indian), a series of anecdotes show the discrimination they face throughout their lives, all because their heritage does not match up with the world around them. “The Myth of the Latin Woman” focuses primarily on the stereotypes of Puerto Rican women, and how these stereotypes have followed the author no matter where she traveled. “If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?” focuses on the lack of belongingness felt by the author both in childhood and her adult life through food.“The Myth

In ‘A Short Essay on Being, Jenny Boully focuses on the ideas of how power and stereotyping are the driving factors that feed into Adichie’s view on the danger of a single story. Everyday, we are surrounded by headlines and events occurring around the world, though unsurprisingly the majority of it is predominately American news. Our cultural and economic power is remarkably influential that we flood our American ways of doing things onto the shores of others through many aspects, one in particular is having the ability to drastically alter cultural foods and still labeling it as it’s original formula . In many ways, Boully uses her love for native food in her stories to show how self-righteous and powerful Americans can be when she hears one of her friends say, “Oh you haven’t had Thai food?

The third most important aspect in her metamorphosis in to “being Chinese” is tasting authentic Chinese food. Jing-mei is excited to taste the food showing her internal yearning to understand her heritage. She experiences true Chinese hoisin sauce. Now that she has tasted foods that seems common to Chinese people Jing-mei connects more with the culture. She feels more Chinese than

How could food, such an inanimate object, have so much value in many different cultures? I am going to write about Tampopo because food has a strong presence in it. I want to show that food in Tampopo has cultural value and demonstrates the blending of different cultures through the food. Others have written about the obsession of food that is shown in the film and the aesthetics of preparing and capturing the beauty of ramen. But, I want to continue proving that the food in Tampopo has cultural values tied to them. Tampopo displays a wide variety of food that mirrors the culture of modern Japan. Tampopo especially shows the different cultural food that is eaten: Japanese, Chinese, and European. While traditional Japanese culture has been

Looking at food as multidimensional, as something that shapes us, our identities, our cultures”( Stajcic, 8), Jade Snow Wong strongly believes that Chinese food is a marker of the Chinese identity. As a non-verbal form of communication, food is notably “at the center of every important event in our lives, such as birthdays, weddings, holidays and funerals. Within ritual contexts, food often 'stands in' for expressions of life, love, happiness or grief” (Stajcic,13). Therefore, she“devotes a lot of space in Fifth Chinese Daughter to descriptions of Chinese food habits, customs of weddings and funerals, Chinatown daily life, as well as business dealing intending to reveal the mystery of the Chinese community” (Bardhan, 186). She“takes the white reader on a gastronomic tour”, and she “describes Chinese meals, takes pain to explain the ritualistic significance of certain meals and folks beliefs about the medicinal properties of certain ingredients”(Stefanovici,216). Jade Snow's undoubted connection to the Chinese heritage is manifested in her endless employment of Chinese food cooking and recipes, and in her descriptions of festivals and family rituals.

In an article written by Amy S. Choi entitled, “What Americans can Learn From Other Food Cultures,” Choi discusses food in ways that pertain to ones culture. Today, our younger generation has become less thankful for simple, traditional foods and more wanting of foods prepared in less traditional ways, almost as if, “the more outlandish the better.” Choi mentioned in her article that, “those slightly younger have been the beneficiaries of the restaurant culture exploding in Shanghai” (Choi, Amy. “What Americans Can Learn From Other Food Cultures.” Ideastedcom. 18 Dec. 2014. Web. 17 June 2015) being from America I agree with her statement. Food in many cultures has become a status symbol; I believe that dining in expensive restaurants that serve

In 2010, as my sisters-in-law and their families prepared to immigrate to the United States (U.S.), my husband and I did all we can to advise and assist them in getting ready for their long journey from Nigeria to the U.S. To our surprise, contrary to every advice we gave them, in preparation for life in the US, they started out with trying American fast foods of different kinds. Culture shock is expected for anyone who immigrates to the US, regardless of where they come from. The type(s) of help the person(s) gets on how to overcome it and their adherence, most often, determines the future outcome of life in their new country of residence.

Around the globe, people are very fond trying and experiencing food they have never tasted. Sometimes your own ethnic food and taste can appear tedious to you at a certain amount of time. One of the most popular ethnic foods in America is the Chinese cuisine. Society is so blindly in love with it, they cannot seem to notice that Chinese food in America is not the authentic food in China. In addition, American fast food that goes overseas, have misplaced its authenticity as well as Chinese food in America due to many valid reasons. The conclusion of authenticity has raised an argument whether for what reasons why Chinese food has lost its authenticity. Moreover, the different reasons why there is a lack of authenticity in ethnic Chinese