Asian American history Essay

There are so many Asian American cultural productions, such as import automobiles, fashion, and art. However, the most important cultural production is food because cooking and eating have been the oldest human activities since human evolution started. Spreading of the different cultures’ and races’ food became more like art and fashion, but it still remains a fundamental part of our daily lives. Fashion and art vary in style by their origin, and each of them shows the aspects of their culture very strongly, but not as strongly as their food. Unlike fashion and art, traditional food impacts people’s physical traits. Many countries have their own traditional food, such as China which is well known for its Chow-Mien, Japan for its Sushi and India for its Curry. These different food from the different regions, have strong effects on people who live in that region. All traditional food has small differences in their nutrition, but that small difference can cause a big difference, if they are consumed daily. As an example, American food has higher fat percentage than Japanese foods or Indian foods. This results in Americans having higher chances of becoming obese than Japanese or Indians. It means each region’s symbolized food determines their characteristics or the identity of their race. In Rush Hour 3, there was a scene where, Lee and Carter were having a relationship conflict. Lee, who is Chinese, ordered fried chicken on the phone while Carter was in China town ordering Mu-Shu for his dinner and they were both recollecting each other. This scene in the movie strongly shows each character’s cultural and racial identity; Black people delivering KFC and Chinese people’s take-out food. â€Å"As the modern Asian American population continues to develop and evolve, we are also witnessing a fascinating transformation of Asian ethnic cuisine as it blends traditional and contemporary aspects into a uniquely Asian American creation.† Many American and Latino children in the United States tend to be more overweight than any different races living in the United States. The spread of childhood obesity is related to the spread of modernization and it’s advertisement on television. Race is a crucial aspect in the study of media and nutrition for two important reasons. The first reason is â€Å"nutritional problems such as childhood obesity are more prevalent among African-American children than among White children in the United States.† The second reason is that the â€Å"food advertisements aimed at African Americans tend to associate Blackness with less healthy food options.† Stereotypes of races are also applied in food as well, which is White priority. In Neil Gotanda’s article of Multiculturalism and Racial Stratification, she stated, â€Å"how multicultural techniques can function to maintain the centerpiece of the old racial order- white privilege.† (Wu & Song, Pg.380) Today, a variety of cooking shows, cookbooks and restaurants become the new place for multiculturalism. Combining of different cultural foods in one dish is not just great. By putting several cultures into one single dish causes more troublesome issues like â€Å"Asian American’s complicated historical and symbolic relationship with food production, distribution, and preparation.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg.179) Some of the strong American heartland cities like Chicago refuse to admit Chinese and Middle Eastern food as regular food because of Asian American’s cultural blur of their origin. Asian Americans came to the United States to fill the necessity for the cheap labor in the agricultural industry and to work as meatpackers and take-out delivery men in the modern day period. The long history of Asian American labor in the food production and service industries caused invisibility in the pleasures and presence of Asian, especially Chinese, cuisine. Martin F. Manalansan IV, the author of the article, ‘Cooking up the Senses’, stated â€Å"Asian Americans’ relationship with the material and symbolic aspects of food is part of their continuing marginal and abject status in the American cultural imaginary.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg.180) Despite the blurriness of their cultural identity, Asian Americans are symbolically and stereotypically linked to their food, which is neither fully Asian nor American. Fusion cuisine has been very popular today because of its bright and modern idea. However, its bright and modern idea is good in one point of view, but bad in another. â€Å"The topic of fusion cuisine became an important source of conversations about cultural in authenticity.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg. 186) The show ‘East Meets West’, run by the host, Ming Tsai, is a famous Asian American cooking show. From the comment of this forty-five year old Indian man, the Asian dish is not incongruent to the atmosphere of the show, which is very American. Other Asian Americans also commented on the irony of the show, where Ming Tsai, who has a typical Asian-looking appearance, speaks just like the big Irish men who work in Wall Street. â€Å"Despite the Chinese-ness of Tsai’s image and body, and the recipe ingredients, music, and other show accoutrements overtly marked as Asian, participants evaluated the chef and the show as being very American and Western.† (Nguyen & Tu, Pg. 186) The mixing of all different kinds of cultural ingredients is too chaotic and they were making everything culturally illegible. The most important cultural production in one’s race is food. Cooking was very simple before the early civilizations. However, as the civilizations developed, people started to separate themselves by forming communities. Each community tended to have different cultures depending on their region. Each region has its own symbolic food determining their characteristics or determining the identity of their race. Food production is one of the most unique ways to express one’s cultural identity, which becomes a basis of one’s racial identity. However, the mixed ingredients of all different cultures make food culturally illegible and blur its racial identity.