Down the street from the Migration Policy Institute’s (MPI) Washington office sits Immigrant Food, a restaurant dedicated to serving “world flavors with a mission.” Its menu features a fusion of global cuisine: lamb skewers with Thai chili, slow-roasted Mexican Cochinita pibil pork in a bao bun, and chicken wings with Greek spices and a feta dip. Gastronomic adventures aside, the restaurant presents an interesting question: what exactly is immigrant food? Or, more precisely, when do particular cuisines stop being associated with immigrants, and start to become just plain old “food”? In the United States, many dishes that feature as staples of the American diet were once a foreign import. Despite the suggestion that something can be “as American as apple pie” apples are not in fact native to North America, and a version of the dessert dates back to 14th century Europe. Hamburgers, similarly, likely originated in a city in Germany, and French fries might actually be Belgian in origin. Last year, the Mexican lager Modelo Especial surpassed Bud Light—the offshoot of a German immigrant’s creation—as the most popular U.S. beer. In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook famously described chicken tikka masala as “a true British national dish,” referring to the South Asian stew of chicken cubes in a fragrant orange sauce as the encapsulation of his country’s multicultural mix. Similarly, it is hard to walk too far through a German town without stumbling across a kiosk selling döner kebab, the ubiquitous Turkish sandwich that consists of meat sliced thinly off a vertical spit. All over the world, cuisines are shaped by people moving in and out, cooking for each other as they go. Historically, in fact, the search for spices to treat our ancestors’ tongues played a critical role in creating globe-spanning trade routes. And increasingly, immigrants are also pushing the boundaries of culinary innovation, leading a disproportionately large number of celebrated fine dining establishments. A particular dish’s complicated journey from “foreign” to “favorite” in some ways encapsulates the integration process of its immigrant creators. As a foreign-born community grows, so too does the number of restaurants catering to its members, influencing the broader surrounding community. As the Pew Research Center recently reported, 85 percent of all U.S. counties have at least one Mexican restaurant. At times, the kitchen has also served as the first step into a new country. In the United States, immigrants are more likely that natives to work in the service sector, including in food service. And a historical loophole in U.S. immigration law made restaurants one of the few exceptions to otherwise blanket bans on Chinese immigration in the early 20th century, helping spread Chinese restaurants from coast to coast. So what, then, is immigrant food? Perhaps it is just another way to refer to the national dishes of tomorrow. On a different and sad note, the U.S. immigration world lost a brilliant scholar this month, with the passing of Father Lydio F. Tomasi, who for 30 years led the Center for Migration Studies and was editor in chief of its International Migration Review. Directly and indirectly, Father Tomasi had a hand in shaping the landscape of immigration analysis for so many, including colleagues at MPI. All of us are thinking of his loved ones and the many lives he touched. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
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