“Let White People Appropriate Mexican Food--Mexicans Do It to Ourselves All the Time” by Gustavo Arellano
My thoughts on cultural appropriation of food changed forever in the research for my 2012 book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. One of my personal highlights was discovering the restaurant that Glenn Bell of Taco Bell infamy had cited in his autobiography as being the source of "inspiration" for him deciding to get into the taco business. How did he get inspired? He'd eat tacos at the restaurant every night, then go across the street to his hot dog stand to try and re-create them.
Bell freely admitted to the story, but never revealed the name of the restaurant. I did: Mitla Cafe in San Bernardino, which is the oldest continuously operating Mexican restaurant in the Inland Empire. I was excited to interview the owner, Irene Montaño, who confirmed Bell's story. I was upset for the Montaños, and when I asked Montaño how she felt that Bell had ripped off her family's recipes to create a multibillion-dollar empire, I expected bitterness, anger, maybe even plans for a lawsuit in an attempt to get at least some of the billions of dollars that Taco Bell has earned over the past 50-plus years.
Instead, Montaño responded with grace: "Good for him!" She pointed out that Mitla had never suffered a drop in business because of Taco Bell, that her restaurant had been in business longer than his and "our tacos were better."
It's an anecdote I always keep in mind whenever stories of cultural appropriation of food by white people get the Left riled up and rock the food world. The latest skirmish is going on in Portland, where two women decided to open up what Willamette Week called "a concept that fits twee Portland": a breakfast burrito pop-up located within a hipster taco cart. The grand sin the gabachas committed, according to the haters, was the admission that they quizzed women in Baja California about how to make the perfect flour tortilla.
For their enthusiasm, the women have received all sorts of shade and have closed down their pop-up. To which I say: laughable. The gabachas knew exactly what they were doing, so didn't they stand by it? Real gumption there, pendejas.
But also laughable is the idea that white people aren't supposed to—pick your word—rip off or appropriate or get "inspired" by Mexican food, that comida mexicana is a sacrosanct tradition only Mexicans and the white girls we marry can participate in. That cultural appropriation is a one-way street where the evil gabacha steals from the poor, pathetic Mexicans yet again.
As we say in Mexico: No se hagan.
What these culture warriors who proclaim to defend Mexicans don't realize is that we're talking about the food industry, one of the most rapacious businesses ever created. It's the human condition at its most Darwinian, where everyone rips everyone off. The only limit to an entrepreneur's chicanery isn't resources, race or class status, but how fast can you rip someone off, how smart you can be to spot trends years before anyone else, and how much money you can make before you have to rip off another idea again.
And no one rips off food like Mexicans.
The Mexican restaurant world is a delicious defense of cultural appropriation—that's what the culinary manifestation of mestizaje is, ain't it? The Spaniards didn't know how to make corn tortillas in the North, so they decided to make them from flour. Mexicans didn't care much for Spanish dessert breads, so we ripped off most pan dulces from the French (not to mention waltzes and mariachi). We didn't care much for wine, so we embraced the beers that German, Czech and Polish immigrants brought to Mexico. And what is al pastor if not Mexicans taking shawarma from the Lebanese, adding pork and making it something as quintessentially Mexican as a corrupt PRI?
Don't cry for ripped-off Mexican chefs—they're too busy ripping each other off. Another anecdote I remember from Taco USA: one of the lieutenants of El Torito founder Larry Cano telling me Larry would pay them to work at a restaurant for a month, learn the recipes, then come back to the mothership so they could replicate it. It ain't just chains, though: In the past year, I've seen dozens of restaurants and loncheras across Southern California offer the Zacatecan specialty birria de res, a dish that was almost exclusively limited to quinceañeras and weddings just three years ago. What changed? The popularity of Burritos La Palma, the Santa Ana lonchera-turned-restaurant. Paisa entrepreneurs quickly learned that Burritos La Palma was getting a chingo of publicity and customers, so they decided to make birria de res on their own to try and steal away customers even though nearly none of them are from Zacatecas.
Shameless? Absolutely.
And that's what cultural appropriation in the food world boils down to: It's smart business, and that's why Mexicans do it, too. That's why a lot of high-end Mexican restaurants not owned by Sinaloans serve aguachile now, because Carlos Salgado of Taco Maria made it popular. That's why working-class Mexicans open marisco palaces even if they're not from the coast—because Sinaloans made Mexican seafood a lucrative scene. That's why nearly every lonchera in Santa Ana serves picaditas, a Veracruzan specialty, even though most owners are from Cuernavaca. That's why a taqueria will sell hamburgers and french fries—because they know the pocho kids of its core clients want to eat that instead of tacos. And that's why bacon-wrapped hot dogs are so popular in Southern California—because SoCal Mexican street-cart vendors ripped off Mexicans in Tijuana, who ripped off Mexicans in Tucson, who ripped off Mexicans in Sonora.
To suggest—as SJWs always do—that Mexicans and other minority entrepreneurs can't possibly engage in cultural appropriation because they're people of color, and that we're always the victims, is ignorant and patronizing and robs us of agency. We're no one's victims, and who says we can't beat the wasichu at their game? And who says Mexicans are somehow left in the poorhouse by white people getting rich off Mexican food? Go ask the Montaños of Mitla how they're doing. Last year, they reopened a long-shuttered banquet hall, and the next generation is introducing new meals and craft beers.
They cried about Bell's appropriation of their tacos all the way to the history books.
This story originally appeared in OC Weekly.
Your Essay Assignment:
Do you agree or disagree with Arellano's defense of cultural appropriation?
Summary of the Essay's Main Arguments
- We are all rapacious creatures whose drive for success makes us to some degree cutthroat and ruthless. The more ruthlessly we steal a recipe the more we affirm the greatness of that recipe. Mediocre food isn't stolen. Only great food is. The theft of Mexican recipes is a tribute to its greatness.
- "Stealing" is actually the natural human inclination for cross-cultural pollination. Such pollination enriches culture and in many cases actually changes culture for the better.
- To treat Mexicans as helpless victims whose delicacies are being stolen is to patronize them and to "rob them of human agency" (free will). In fact, Mexicans have been "stealing," or rather cross-pollinating, for thousands of years. Their history is rife with taking foods from other cultures such as Spain, France, and the Middle East, and making these foods their own.
- From the Netflix series Ugly Delicious, "Tacos" episode, we find that respectful inspiration from the original dish is an acceptable form of cultural appropriation.
Some Caveats, Stipulations, or Conditions We Can Use from Ugly Delicious, "Tacos":
- Taking shortcuts is an abomination and degrades the original version of the food such as tortillas.
- Offering stereotypes of Mexican food is an abomination and shows ignorance of the depth of ingredients and creativity from the treasures of Mexican cooking. Don't play "Jingle Bells" on the piano when you should be playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
- Making tourist food or white-washing food to make it bland for mass appeal will make you money but it is an abomination of authentic Mexican food.
- Taking agua fresca and rebranding it as "spa water" is a form of racial plagiarism so egregious that I doubt Gustavo Arellano would defend such an act of shamelessness and arrogance.
What are the two opposing sides of this argument?
The Great Debate: Innovation Vs. Tradition:
On one side, Gustavo Arellano’s side, is the argument that great food evolves through stealing and that stealing is a sign of the food’s greatness. Another side of food greatness is constant evolution and constant innovation. People are open to experimenting with foods and not tied to traditions and absolutes. Mexican food, moreover, is not a monolith. There is diversity based on regions and innovations, so there is no such thing as One Kind of Mexican Food, no One Burrito, No One Taco, etc.
On the other side, the Cult of Authenticity, is the belief that food should be unchanged. Food is iconic and rooted in tradition and attempts at changing the food is equivalent to “blasphemy.” Also, when the food is taken and changed it accounts to the loathsome act of cultural appropriation. Which side are you on?
Use the Toulmin Argument Model with a Counterargument-Rebuttal Section
From a design and structure standpoint, you are learning to write an argumentative essay in the tradition of the Toulmin Model, named after philosopher Stephen Toulmin. In the Toulmin Model, you address your opponents’ views in a counterargument-rebuttal section.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.
A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence.
Types of dependent clauses:
Whenever I drive up windy mountains,
Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,
Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,
,which is currently enjoying a resurgence.
Phrases
Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,
Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,
Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,
Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,
To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,
Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,
Examples
I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.
I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.
I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.
I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.
Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
Sentence Fragment Exercises
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.
Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.
Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.
Identify the Fragments Below
Identify the Fragments Below
I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.
Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.
Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.
I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.
Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.
“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.
She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” I said. “I would love to meet your mother Gertrude and your mother’s pitbull Jackson. Only one problem. My breath smells like a rotting dead dragon. Right after eating spicy ribs. Which reminds me? Do you have any breath mints?”
“I don’t believe in carrying breath mints. On account of the rose-water vape. That cleanses my palate. Making my breath rosy fresh.”
“Wow. Your constant good breath counteracts my intractable bad breath. Making us a match in heaven.”
“I agree. Totally. You really need to meet my mother. Because she’ll bless us and make our marriage official. Since we really need her blessing. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Now let me smell your breath. So I can identify the hot sauce.”
“Why must you do that?”
“So I can use the same hot sauce on our wedding cake, silly. To celebrate the first night we met. Capisce?”
“Capisce.”
She approached me. Affording me a view of her long, tired face. Covered in scales. Reptilian. Evocative of something primitive. Something precious and indelible from my childhood lost long ago. I wanted to run from her, but I could not. Some mysterious force drew me to her, and we inched closer and closer toward one another. Succumbing to a power neither of us could fathom.
Comma Splice Review
Identify the Comma Splices Below:
It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?
MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.
To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.
One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.
Cultural Pollination:
Grandmother's food to father's business to son's business
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