New YorkIt’s a practice that’s as American as apple pie — accusing immigrant and minority communities of acting strangely or disgustingly in what they eat and drink and how they eat, a kind of shorthand way of saying they don’t belong here. The latest iteration occurred at Tuesday’s presidential debate, when former President Donald Trump unleashed a false online storm surrounding the Haitian immigrant community of Springfield, Ohio. He repeated the baseless claim previously spread by his fellow candidate, J.D. Vancethat immigrants were stealing their American neighbors’ prized pet dogs and cats and eating them. The uproar gained so much momentum that authorities had to come forward to deny it, saying there was no credible evidence of any such thing.
While this might be enough to upset you, such food-based accusations are nothing new.
Food-related mockery and insults were hurled at Chinese immigrant communities on the West Coast in the late 1800s as they began arriving in large numbers to the United States, and in the following decades it spread to other Asian and Pacific Islander communities, such as the Thai or Vietnamese. Just last year, a Thai restaurant in California faced criticism for this stereotype, causing so much controversy that the owner had to close his restaurant and move to another location.
The idea behind this is that “you are engaging in something that is not just a matter of taste, but a violation of the principle of being human.” Paul FriedmanThe history professor at Yale University said Chinese immigrants were made “other” by portraying them as people who eat things that Americans refuse to eat.
Food items may become a subject of controversy in America
Other communities were not accused of eating domesticated animals, but as new arrivals, they were criticized for the strangeness of the food they cooked, such as Italians using too much garlic or Indians using too much curry powder. Minority groups that had been present in the country for a long time were and still are not free from racist stereotypes – insulting African Americans with derogatory references to Mexicans and beans or comments about fried chicken and watermelon.
“Almost every ethnic group has some sort of slur based on the food they eat,” he says. Amy Bentley“And so it’s a really good way to put people down,” said Dr. , a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University.
That’s because food is not just nutrition. Human eating habits contain essential elements for the creation of culture – the things that distinguish different people and that can be used to fuel ethnic hatred or political disputes.
“We need it to survive, but it’s also highly ritualized and highly symbolic. So birthday cakes, anniversaries, things like that are celebrated and commemorated with food and drink,” says Bentley. “It’s so deeply ingrained in all parts of our lives.”
And because “there are distinctive variations in how humans perform these rituals, how they eat, how they have shaped their cuisine, how they eat their food,” she adds, “it could be a matter of commonality … or it could also be a form of distinctive division.”
It’s not just about what. Insults can also come from how – for example, eating with hands or chopsticks rather than a fork and knife. This can be seen in class-based prejudice against poor people, who did not have the same access to elaborate table settings or could not afford to eat like rich people – and out of necessity used different, perhaps unfamiliar ingredients.
Such slander can also extend directly to current events. For example, during the second Gulf War, Americans angered by France’s opposition to the US invasion of Iraq began calling French fries “freedom fries”. And during the first two world wars a much-used derogatory term in the United States for Germans was “krauts” – a jab at a culture where sauerkraut was a traditional food.
“What exactly was wrong with the way urban immigrants ate?” wrote Donna R. Gabaccia in her 1998 book “We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans.” Reviewing early 20th-century attitudes and demands for “100% Americanism,” she noted that “sauerkraut became victory cabbage” and one account complained of an Italian family “still eating spaghetti, not yet assimilated.”
The expanding food culture provides constant fodder
Such stereotypes persist despite the fact that American tastes have expanded considerably in recent decades, in part due to the arrival of immigrant communities that have seen grocery stores stocked with ingredients that would have baffled previous generations. The rise of restaurant culture has offered many diners authentic examples of cuisines that in other eras they might have needed a passport to get to.
After all, Bentley says, “when immigrants move to another country, they bring their food traditions with them and maintain them as much as possible. … It’s a reminder of family, community, and home. They’re really physical, multi-sensory expressions of our identity.”
Haitian cuisine is just one example. Communities found in New York City have contributed to the culinary landscape by using ingredients such as goat, bananas, and cassava.
So when trump He said immigrants in Springfield — whom he called “the people who come” — were eating the dogs and cats and “the pets of the people who live there,” comments that resonated not just with food but with culture as well.
And though Americans’ tastes have grown in recent decades, the persistence of stereotypes — and outright insults, whether based on fact or entirely fabricated — about food shows that just because Americans eat more widely doesn’t mean it translates into tolerance or nuance toward other groups.
“That’s a false notion,” says Friedman. “It’s like the misconception about tourism, that traveling makes us more understanding of diversity. The best example right now is Mexican food. A lot of people like Mexican food and think immigration should be stopped. There’s no connection between enjoying a foreigner’s food and being open to that.”
While this might be enough to upset you, such food-based accusations are nothing new.
Food-related mockery and insults were hurled at Chinese immigrant communities on the West Coast in the late 1800s as they began arriving in large numbers to the United States, and in the following decades it spread to other Asian and Pacific Islander communities, such as the Thai or Vietnamese. Just last year, a Thai restaurant in California faced criticism for this stereotype, causing so much controversy that the owner had to close his restaurant and move to another location.
The idea behind this is that “you are engaging in something that is not just a matter of taste, but a violation of the principle of being human.” Paul FriedmanThe history professor at Yale University said Chinese immigrants were made “other” by portraying them as people who eat things that Americans refuse to eat.
Food items may become a subject of controversy in America
Other communities were not accused of eating domesticated animals, but as new arrivals, they were criticized for the strangeness of the food they cooked, such as Italians using too much garlic or Indians using too much curry powder. Minority groups that had been present in the country for a long time were and still are not free from racist stereotypes – insulting African Americans with derogatory references to Mexicans and beans or comments about fried chicken and watermelon.
“Almost every ethnic group has some sort of slur based on the food they eat,” he says. Amy Bentley“And so it’s a really good way to put people down,” said Dr. , a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University.
That’s because food is not just nutrition. Human eating habits contain essential elements for the creation of culture – the things that distinguish different people and that can be used to fuel ethnic hatred or political disputes.
“We need it to survive, but it’s also highly ritualized and highly symbolic. So birthday cakes, anniversaries, things like that are celebrated and commemorated with food and drink,” says Bentley. “It’s so deeply ingrained in all parts of our lives.”
And because “there are distinctive variations in how humans perform these rituals, how they eat, how they have shaped their cuisine, how they eat their food,” she adds, “it could be a matter of commonality … or it could also be a form of distinctive division.”
It’s not just about what. Insults can also come from how – for example, eating with hands or chopsticks rather than a fork and knife. This can be seen in class-based prejudice against poor people, who did not have the same access to elaborate table settings or could not afford to eat like rich people – and out of necessity used different, perhaps unfamiliar ingredients.
Such slander can also extend directly to current events. For example, during the second Gulf War, Americans angered by France’s opposition to the US invasion of Iraq began calling French fries “freedom fries”. And during the first two world wars a much-used derogatory term in the United States for Germans was “krauts” – a jab at a culture where sauerkraut was a traditional food.
“What exactly was wrong with the way urban immigrants ate?” wrote Donna R. Gabaccia in her 1998 book “We Are What We Eat: Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans.” Reviewing early 20th-century attitudes and demands for “100% Americanism,” she noted that “sauerkraut became victory cabbage” and one account complained of an Italian family “still eating spaghetti, not yet assimilated.”
The expanding food culture provides constant fodder
Such stereotypes persist despite the fact that American tastes have expanded considerably in recent decades, in part due to the arrival of immigrant communities that have seen grocery stores stocked with ingredients that would have baffled previous generations. The rise of restaurant culture has offered many diners authentic examples of cuisines that in other eras they might have needed a passport to get to.
After all, Bentley says, “when immigrants move to another country, they bring their food traditions with them and maintain them as much as possible. … It’s a reminder of family, community, and home. They’re really physical, multi-sensory expressions of our identity.”
Haitian cuisine is just one example. Communities found in New York City have contributed to the culinary landscape by using ingredients such as goat, bananas, and cassava.
So when trump He said immigrants in Springfield — whom he called “the people who come” — were eating the dogs and cats and “the pets of the people who live there,” comments that resonated not just with food but with culture as well.
And though Americans’ tastes have grown in recent decades, the persistence of stereotypes — and outright insults, whether based on fact or entirely fabricated — about food shows that just because Americans eat more widely doesn’t mean it translates into tolerance or nuance toward other groups.
“That’s a false notion,” says Friedman. “It’s like the misconception about tourism, that traveling makes us more understanding of diversity. The best example right now is Mexican food. A lot of people like Mexican food and think immigration should be stopped. There’s no connection between enjoying a foreigner’s food and being open to that.”
