Spring 2024 Authenticity Lesson #3: Thesis Statements and Counter Thesis Statements; Ann Kim & Self-Expression

 

  

Sample Theses That Refute and Defend Gustavo Arellano’s Argument

Refutation

 

Gustavo Arellano is a prestigious, beloved Los Angeles culture writer. Unfortunately, his argument that attempts to ease the collective white conscience to steal Mexican food is a sad, unconvincing affair. His argument is crippled with egregious moral, legal, and logical fallacies. He knows all too well that American history is rife with white people exploiting Mexicans’ hard work and ingenuity. To defend whites because “everyone steals” is a childish remark that fails basic moral teachings, specifically the infantile notion that two wrongs make a right. Second, if Arellano wants us to take him seriously, he must give us a more narrow definition of cultural appropriation. There is no moral equivalence between a Salvadorean husband respectfully learning the finer points of making Jahuacatas from his wife who hails from Michoacan and the white El Torito manager who hires a Mexican worker, steals the worker’s recipes over a period of two months, and then unceremoniously fires the worker.  A third most regrettable error on Arellano’s part is how he conveniently ignores the atrocious fact that the majority of white stealing of Mexican food is done in the cynical service of making money by white-washing and in effect destroying delicious food to make it palatable for philistines, tourists, and other types of phony people who fancy deluding themselves into “going out and getting some ethnic food.” The bad scenarios described above are more than just bad; they are abominations of the tastebuds and the soul, and for Arellano to omit these abominations from his argument is a form of intellectual dishonesty for which I cannot forgive. 

 

Defense

 

I feel bad for the above writer who has morally excoriated Gustavo Arellano for his supposed moral failings. This writer’s spiritual purity and moral self-righteousness have blinded him from the gustatory pleasures that result from Arellano’s “free-stealing” philosophy. By “free-stealing,” I refer to a degree of healthy chaos that exists in the food industry. Recipes are flying from one town to another; variations are infinite based on quirks, available food, cross-cultural pollination, and a synthesis of cooking techniques from the many cultures that inevitably converge in great cosmopolitan cities such as Los Angeles. Moreover, the relevance of Mexican cooking makes it the most popular, fastest-growing cuisine in the world. Contrary to the above passage which attempts to put a big stink on Gustavo Arellano and which would have us believe that Mexican food is pure, sacrosanct, and unchanging, real Mexican food is constantly evolving through ruthless stealing, borrowing, mutations, and respectful homages to its sacred origins. Thank God, Gustavo Arellano acknowledges the vibrancy of Mexican cooking and its complicated, sometimes morally questionable origins, for finally, a food writer has exposed the truth about the wonders of Mexican food. The above writer, on the other hand, gets a medal for moral self-righteousness but loses points for being a boring, propaganda writer for the Cult of Authenticity. 

Refutation

Gustavo Arellano is gung-ho about white people stealing from Mexicans for three reasons. One, since Mexicans steal, everyone else should be able to. Two, stealing Mexican food is great for popularizing Mexican food throughout the world. Three, dishing up substandard debased Mexican food is a great “gateway drug” to getting people hooked on real Mexican food. All three of his reasons are so ludicrous and asinine as to strain credulity. For one, that Mexicans interacted with other cultures, some who colonized them, and created amazing food is not morally equivalent to privileged classes of people today stealing Mexican food and exploiting Mexican workers. For two, while it’s true that stealing Mexican recipes popularizes Mexican food, this popularization for at least 99% of the time is a disrespectful corruption of true Mexican cooking. So Mexican food has been watered-down to suit the tastes of tacky tourists. Am I supposed to celebrate that fact? I think not. Finally, Arellano would have us applaud the serving of crappy food as the “gateway drug” to real Mexican food. Arellano’s reasoning is based on the optimistic and fallacious assumption that the tasteless hordes will get one taste of abysmal phony Mexican food and want to pivot to something more authentic when in fact the evidence proves otherwise. Look at the popularity of Taco Bell, El Torito, and other shambolic soul-crushing food chains and you’ll see that the masses are quite content with eating phony soulless Mexican food and have complete disregard for the real thing. One last thing I must mention is that Arellano's argument is hypocritical and disingenuous. What do I mean? You won't see Arellano eating and praising Mexican food from white establishments or food chains. He himself goes to hole-in-the-walls owned by Mexicans and other ethnic people and finds his favorite foods from these delicious remote places. These are the places he celebrates in his columns. In other words, Arellano can't even put his money where his mouth is. So while I will read Gustavo Arellano’s cultural criticism, I will index his defense of white people stealing Mexican food in my Rejection and Nonsense File. 

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Ann Kim: Self-Expression by Breaking the Pizza Orthodoxy

See Chef's Table Pizza with Ann Kim

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McMahon's Thesis:

Gustavo Arellano and Ann Kim make a strong case that respectful synthesis of ingredients allows Mexican food to break from tradition and grow into new food territory as an explanation for the popularity of Mexican food and other cuisines. However, I reject the Taco-Bellification of Mexican food because watering down recipes to cater to tourists and novice customers is a desecration of food and is a form of gastronomical self-abasement from which there may be no return.  

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Ann Kim from Chef’s Table Pizza, puts her own family cooking traditions into her pizza creations to produce popular restaurants. Comparing her pizza innovations to Gustavo Arrellano’s claim that people should be able to “steal” Mexican food as part of Mexican food’s growing popularity, write a 5-point outline to defend Arrelanno’s claim.

ChatGPT

Sure, here's a 5-point outline to defend Gustavo Arellano’s claim that people should be able to "steal" Mexican food as part of its growing popularity, using Ann Kim’s incorporation of her own family cooking traditions into her pizza creations as a comparative framework:

Outline

1. Introduction to Cultural Adaptation in Cuisine

   • Briefly introduce Ann Kim and her success with Chef’s Table Pizza, emphasizing her integration of family traditions.
   • Present Arellano’s claim about "stealing" Mexican food and its role in the cuisine’s popularity.

2. Historical Context of Culinary Evolution

   • Discuss how cuisines have historically evolved through the blending of various cultural influences.
   • Compare this to Ann Kim’s pizzas, which fuse traditional family recipes with Italian pizza, creating unique, popular dishes.

3. Cultural Exchange and Innovation

   • Argue that cultural exchange in food leads to innovation and new culinary experiences.
   • Use Kim’s pizza as an example of how integrating different cultural elements can create something novel and widely appreciated.
   • Defend Arellano's view by showing how Mexican cuisine benefits from such innovation and wider exposure.

4. Economic and Social Benefits

   • Highlight the economic advantages of allowing culinary "theft," such as increased restaurant diversity and consumer choice.
   • Point out that Ann Kim’s restaurants thrive by offering something unique, thus supporting local economies and broadening social interactions through food.
   • Connect this to the positive impact on Mexican cuisine’s popularity and economic success when more people engage with it.

5. Preservation and Respect for Origins

   • Address potential concerns about cultural appropriation by emphasizing the importance of respecting and acknowledging the origins of the cuisine.
   • Show how Ann Kim honors her family traditions while innovating, setting a precedent for how Mexican food can be respectfully "stolen" and adapted.
   • Conclude by reinforcing that "stealing" food, when done with respect and acknowledgment, can enhance cultural appreciation and sustain culinary traditions.

By following this outline, the argument in defense of Arellano’s claim can be effectively structured, using Ann Kim’s successful culinary adaptations as a compelling comparative example.

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Highlights from Gustavo Arellano’s Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America

The Cosmic Burrito

According to food writer and Los Angeles Times culture critic Gustavo Arellano, Mexican food has been assimilated and celebrated in the United States for 125 years. Tacos and burritos are America’s comfort food. 

The celebration of Mexican food in America has caused a worldwide appetite for Mexican food, from Dubai to Australia, which has its own Taco Bell, called Taco Bill’s, which specializes in fish tacos.

Arellano observes that for over 100 years, many Americans who are anti-Mexican in their prejudices are unaware of the contradiction between their racism and their undying love of Mexican food. They compartmentalize, loving the food yet inexplicably disliking the people who make it, turning Mexicans into negative stereotypes while having a relentless desire for Mexican food. 

Tortillas are the preferred food of NASA astronauts, so there is now the “Cosmic Burrito” and variations of Mexican food pop up all over America, including the muchaco, a taco made with ground beef and pita bread at the Taco Bueno restaurant chain.

Hot Cocoa Comes from Mexico

Arellano observes that traditional desserts made with cocoa and vanilla to make chocolate and vanilla desserts, including hot cocoa, come from 1700s Mexico when the Virgin Mary statues in the cathedrals had offerings of various chocolate and vanilla desserts. This vanilla was cultivated to perfection and copied by the Europeans in Pico de Orizaba, a vanilla region in Veracruz, which is in eastern Mexico. 

As early as the 1500s, Spanish conquerors fell in love with Mexican foods made with corn or maize, which were made into various forms of masa cornmeal.

The Spaniards become obsessed with tortillas and tamales, the latter being a convenience food perfect for traveling with.

The Spanish invader Cortes demanded Mexican food in his court, and according to Arellano, this is the first documented case of cultural appropriation.

Moreover, the Spaniards introduced the Mexicans to wheat flour, which brought flour tortillas to the Mexican diet. 

This is our first known case of fusion. 

Chile Con Carne (soon to become Chili)

Arrellano observes that the first chili made with hot peppers and meat was around 1870 in the San Antonio region, not Texas, but pre-Texas: Tejas. 

Chile became so popular that by the 1880s, you could already find it advertised in Hawaii and Washington D.C. 

The world doesn’t understand how good Mexican food is. They take it for granted. This is one of Arellano’s main points.

Now Chile Con Carne is just “Chili.”

Tamalero

Tamales started to spread throughout America in the 1890s and were sold by European, Indian, and Arab immigrants who were often called “Mexicans.” These immigrants who sold the tamales on the streets were called Tamaleros, AKA “The Hot Tamale Man.”

They became part of American popular culture and folklore.

World Domination of the Taco in the 1950s

As big as tamales and chili were for about 70 years, they would be replaced by the world-dominating taco starting in the 1950s. 

Arellano contributes this growth to a place in Orange County called Irvine, the birth of Taco Bell, founded by Glen Bell. 

We now have many tacos including:

• The soft-shell taco
• The taco dorado (hard shell)
• The taquito (flautas)

Tacos have exploded all over the world, including Sweden, Japan, and South Africa. 

Birthplace of the American Taco and the Gateway Drug Argument

While Glen Bell popularized the taco, the birthplace of the American taco comes from downtown Los Angeles on Olvera Street, a tiny taco stand called Cielito Lindo, circa 1931. 

The second place is in San Bernardino, the Mitla Cafe, established in 1937. The restaurant served hard-shell tacos packed with beef and shredded cheese: taco dorado con carne molida.  

Glen Bell noticed the popularity of Mexican food among the white consumer base in the San Bernardino area, and he copied Mitla Cafe when he started various taco ventures before settling on Taco Bell. 

The owners of Mitla Cafe and Gustavo Arellano defend Taco Bell with its phony “Mexican food” because it’s the “gateway drug” to real Mexican food.

We can call this the Gateway Drug Argument for your essay. 

Challenges to Authenticity

In his book, Taco USA, Arellano tackles some challenges to the idea of authenticity in Mexican food:

• Since the 1980s, many white chefs have become Mexican food “experts,” writing cookbooks, opening Mexican restaurants, and having TV shows featuring Mexican food. 
• There was a type of food from New Mexico called “Southwestern Cuisine,” which could often be pretentious “gourmet” dishes with some loose connection to Mexican food. Other times, the food is very good, featuring local ingredients like hatch chilies. The enduring food from Southwestern Cuisine is the breakfast burrito. The craze started to die in the 1990s.
• Tex-Mex, a fusion that since the 1930s features fajitas and chili has been criticized as being inauthentic, “the lowest common denominator of Mexican food.” However, the actual term Tex-Mex wasn’t coined until the 1960s.

The Great Burrito Rivalry 

Gustavo Arellano adores the legendary Manuel’s Special at Manuel’s El Tepeyac Cafe in Boyle Heights. 

He compares the burrito to an encounter with God. The burrito is 5 pounds and filled with grilled chicken, carne asada, machaca, beans, rice, guacamole, and sour cream. 

The rival to Los Angeles for burritos is San Francisco, the Mission District, a place called “El Faro,” the Lighthouse. These are called Mission Style burritos. 

“Tracing the delicious history of San Francisco’s mission style burrito”

“Why are Restaurant Burritos Better Than Homemade?”

Holy Grail Mexican Food Destinations

• Arellano says his favorite burrito is the chile relleno burrito at Lucy’s Drive-In on Pico Blvd and La Brea in Los Angeles.
• His favorite tamales are at Pasquale’s Tamales, a trailer in Helena, Arkansa, owned by a third-generation Sicilian family. 
• His favorite lamb chicharrones are Angelina’s in Espanola, New Mexico. 
• He loves the Taco Acorazado (Battleship) at Alebrije’s Grill in Santa Ana, CA. He says the tortillas alone are a miracle. 

Not All Cultural Appropriation Is Alike: To Agree Or Not to Agree with Gustavo Arellano

The college students in my critical thinking class and I live in Los Angeles where some of the best food in the world is in our very backyards. I don’t want my students or me to take this for granted. I want us to do a deep dive into the Los Angeles food world, particularly Mexican food, the most popular cuisine in the world. So for our final essay assignment, we read Gustavo Arellano’s article “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food--Mexicans Do It to Ourselves All the Time” and we write an essay that supports or refutes Arellano’s defense of cultural appropriation. 

Arellano defends cultural appropriation by explaining three things. One, that since the beginning of time, restaurant owners have copied their competition; two, social justice warriors aren’t helping anyone when they patronize Mexicans by painting them as helpless victims when in fact Mexicans steal in the food industry just like everyone else; and three, what some might call appropriation or stealing can be in fact the healthy human impulse for cross-cultural pollination, evidenced by the fact that many of Mexico’s most famous regional dishes incorporate the food and ingredients from Spain, France, and the Middle East. 

Arellano’s argument forces us to question the very idea of authenticity. What is authenticity? In the context of Mexican food, authenticity is the traditions of regional Mexican cooking that bring labor-intensive cooking techniques, geographical richness, and time-tested rituals to produce some of the best food in the world. But authenticity is more than food. It is family and culture. I urge you to watch The Taco Chronicles on Netflix. When you see families in different parts of Mexico making carnitas, canasta, asada, pastor, barbacoa, guisado, suadero, cochinita, cabrito, birria, and pescado, you will find that the geography and family traditions make these dishes authentic. But just as importantly, these foods are so good that they are a miracle from God. Look at the love the community lavishes on the local taquero, the man selling tacos on the street corner. He is bringing love to the city, and he is appreciated for it. Look at the entire communities gathering together to make these authentic dishes and you will see that food is rooted in family and culture. What is most beautiful about this notion of authenticity is the expression of love for others by bringing them the food of the gods. There is a reason in Mexico why the taco is called madre. 

When we watch The Taco Chronicles, the sense of community combined with the making of the best food in the world wins our hearts and our stomachs. Any notion of violating this authenticity rightfully angers us and we are disinclined to agree with Arellano’s support of cultural appropriation. However, if you read Arellano’s book Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, you will get more context for Arellano’s defense of cultural appropriation. Arellano would never want us to violate the authentic regional traditions of Mexican cooking. Instead, he is arguing that the splendor of regional Mexican cooking spread to America by bringing food that is both desirable and affordable and that some, not all, of the magic of authentic Mexican cuisine became accessible to the American masses. Moreover, this Mexican food changed American culture for the better. Full-flavored Mexican food replaced the tasteless pablum of “American” food. Americans speak with their money and they spend so much money on Mexican food that they have made a statement that they want Mexican food in their culture. 

Is Gustavo Arellano defending all forms of cultural appropriation? Clearly not. If you read his articles and watch the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, “Tacos,” you will see that Arellano has contempt for “soulless” Mexican food, “Mexican” food chains that bastardize good-tasting Mexican food, food chains that disconnect the food they sell from the workers and from the Mexican culture; you will also see that Arellano has a healthy contempt for white-washed tourist food--phony overpriced Mexican food that has no spice and has been altered to appeal to the most infantile tastebuds. These counterfeit “Mexican” restaurants aren’t serving Mexican food at all. Rather, they are shamelessly serving overpriced tasteless codswallop. They are an abomination of Mexican food and the very idea of cross-cultural pollination. 

However, there are defensible iterations of cultural appropriation. Stealing recipes from Mexico and elsewhere and bringing affordable street food to America doesn’t hurt anyone and in fact brings the nectar of the gods to more people for affordable prices. Recipes are stolen all the time. Just don’t take aqua fresca and call it “spa water” on your Tiktok channel, as Gracie Norton did, which is a form of racial plagiarism. 

Some will argue that if some white ladies from Portland go to Mexico and steal taco recipes from grandmothers in Mexico City, those grandmothers are entitled to a cut of the action. But in reality, millions of recipes are stolen every day in the restaurant industry and any kind of compensation through accurate and detailed accounting is an impossibility. 

Another defense of Gustavo Arellano’s claim that cultural appropriation is a good thing can be found in Netflix’s Chef’s Table Pizza series. Specifically, there are two chefs, Chris Bianco and Ann Kim, who break the rules of tradition to show that there is a place for creativity and improvisation in making superior pizza that violates notions of tradition and authenticity. In fact, Italian pizza experts have visited Chris Bianco’s Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona, and have proclaimed that his pizza is superior to the traditional pizzas of Italy. In the case of Ann Kim, she puts kimchi on her pizza and serves Korean mung bean pancakes and her restaurant Pizzeria Lola is so famous that to meet demand, she opened three other restaurants: Hello Pizza, Young Joni, and Sook & Mimi. Incidentally, her most recent restaurant Sook & Mimi features handmade tortillas made in the tradition of Mexico. 

When we see successful restauranters such as Chris Bianco and Ann Kim make delicious food that is based on both authenticity and creativity, we see that making authentic food, or not, is not an either/or proposition. It is possible to do both. Again, this notion of combining authenticity with cultural cross-pollination supports Arellano’s defense of cultural appropriation.

Clearly, not all forms of cultural appropriation are alike. Some types are an abomination. Others are a celebration. The purpose of this assignment is to use our critical thinking skills to distinguish the good from the bad and to find nuance, shades of gray, and complexity. 

Just as the best tacos have a complexity of flavors, the best essays have a complexity of ideas.  

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Choice A Building Block 1

The Assignment: Write 2 Paragraphs:

Write 2 paragraphs, an Introductory Paragraph and an Argumentative Thesis Paragraph.

Instructions for Introductory Paragraph

I recommend one of two approaches for your introductory paragraph. 

Method #1: Summarize the main ideas in the article by Gustavo Arellano titled “Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food.” 

Method #2 Summarize the main ideas in the YouTube video “Cultural Appropriation Tastes Damn Good.”

Instructions for Argumentative Thesis Paragraph

Then transition to an argumentative claim in which you show support or repudiation of Arellano’s main ideas. 

While I take offense at the inflated prices of some of these appropriation restaurants and the lack of credit given to the original sources, I agree with GA’s claim that _______ because ________, ______________, ________________, and _______________________. 

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