Identity Formation and Immigrant Cuisine in the United States
I first learned about Mark Padoongpatt in Professor Quan Tran’s class “Asian Diasporas since 1800.” Have you ever read something that completely took apart the way you think about the world and then reconstructed your reality? That’s how I felt after reading Padoongpatt’s article, “Too Hot to Handle: Food, Empire, and Race in Thai Los Angeles.” Let me explain.
Padoongpatt is an Assistant Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Too Hot to Handle: Food, Empire, and Race in Thai Los Angeles” is one chapter from his new book, Flavors of Empire: Food and the Making of Thai America. This is one of the first books that studies Thai American identity. Padoongpatt uses the history of Thai food to trace the history of United States imperialism and neo-colonialism in Thailand to the racial and ethnic identity formation of Thai Americans in the U.S.
On February 28, Padoongpatt visited Yale to discuss his book as part of the Asian American Studies series (sponsored by Center for Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration and the Yale Sustainable Food Program). He shared his background, research process, and motivations for his scholarship.
Food was not always a locus of Padoongpatt’s academic work. Early on in his undergraduate career, he shied away from writing about Thai American food and identity, because he wanted to avoid playing into the tropes that Thai Americans can only be defined by their food. Eventually, he realized the deep connection between Thai American food and identity in U.S., and drew upon his experiences of growing up in North Hollywood, alongside historical analysis, to write Flavors of Empire.
As he writes, although Thailand has maintained its sovereignty — has not been colonized — the country has a uniquely “friendly” relationship with the U.S. During the Cold War, the U.S. expanded its military empire to fight communism in Southeast Asia, specifically in Thailand. Later, during the Vietnam War, Thailand allowed the U.S government to use their Thai military bases, and sent troops to fight with the South Vietnamese Army. This relationship facilitated the flow of American soldiers, diplomats, teachers, tourists, and business into Thailand. At the same time, the Thai government promoted the leisure and tourism sectors, and Thai restaurants became an important site for how Americans came to construct Thai people as a racial group.
When Thai people migrated to the U.S., they fashioned a unique Thai American identity by producing and selling Thai food in restaurants. Many Thai students migrated to the U.S. to attend universities and supported themselves by selling food and eventually opening Thai restaurants. These restaurants were one of the few places where Thai people and non-Thai people interacted, which greatly informed the emergent association between Thai food and Thai people in the U.S. Thai restaurants distinguished themselves from Chinese and other Asian restaurants by claiming that Thai food was healthy and more refined (as opposed to Chinese take-out).
Padoongpatt describes Thai restaurants and the Watt Thai temple in North Hollywood, Calif. as sites of Thai American community formation, a process by which people find a sense of group belonging. Growing up in San Fernando Valley, I often ate at Thai restaurants and visited the Watt Thai temple. I never considered the history of these spaces before, and like many only saw them as places to eat good Thai food.
Padoongpatt’s work, though, expanded my conceptions of what studying food can reveal. It clearly extends beyond ingredients, flavors, and culture. Food is also about identity formation, place-making, imperialism, and colonialism, and can be used to confront messy and violent histories that need to be uncovered and interrogated.
Flavors of Empire allowed me to see the consequences of U.S. militarization in Southeast Asia, a history that shapes my reality and identity as a Vietnamese American. The book helped me reflect on how French colonialism in Vietnam influenced what constitutes Vietnamese food today. Phở, a beef noodle soup dish and the national dish, is derived from French people eating beef in Vietnam during the colonial era. The combination of leftover bones and many different herbs and spices gave rise to phở as it’s made today.
There are few people who know this history and many people who might think it’s not that important. However, the origin story of phở provides an important entry point to interrogate the history of colonialism in Vietnam — just as Padoongpatt’s analysis of Thai food is an entry point into the history of Thai people in U.S.
Tien Tran SM`19 is an Environmental Studies major.
