I came up in a generation of journalism that's been punctuated by the late Jonathan Gold and Anthony Bourdain, two iconic figures for their work humanizing the experiences of immigrants through the lens of food. When I was a young reporter in Orange County, I got to meet Gold at a journalism workshop. Knowing him was like having access to my own personal critic. I'd send him Facebook messages when I was planning to drive into Downtown LA for a night out: Know of any good taquerias in [fill in the blank] neighborhood? Years later, I'd moved to Detroit for a reporting job and found myself spending my first few months vegging out on old episodes of Bourdain's No Reservations on Netflix. I always gravitated towards his American episodes because they provided a beautiful representation of communities that other media outlets either maligned or ignored altogether. And every single time I read Bourdain's comments about Mexicans — about how Americans love our culture, our food, our labor, but not our patria — I find myself with a tick in my throat. He just got it.
Both of these men played critical roles in my development as a journalist: They made communities of color feel seen. They helped many people like me realize that our food traditions aren't just worth writing about — our foodways have been contributing to the betterment of society for a millenia. We, as Mexicans and other Latinos, are essential to the fabric of just about every aspect of American life, particularly when it comes to the restaurant industry and food. And yet, we're often perceived as a threat. Even members of our own community join this chorus: In 2016, the Mexican-born Marco Gutierrez, who founded Latinos for Trump, warned that if we're not careful, we're "going to have taco trucks on every corner."
So imagine taking Bourdain and Gold's mission personally: Telling our own stories, using food as the vehicle for empowerment and self-actualization instead of allowing others to insist that America is inundated with too many taquerias, that Latine contributions have no value, or that we as Mexicans need to keep our heads down, be grateful that we're even invited to the table so as to not upset the status quo.
In 2017, I launched Tostada Magazine, a Detroit-based site that operates under the premise that food — and food journalism — has the ability to uplift communities and preserve culture. The site now features hundreds of stories about the taqueros and taqueras who've transformed how Detroiters eat, about the many food traditions around Ramadan in recognition of the Detroit region's huge Muslim American population, about what Venezuelan Major League Baseball players like to eat whenever they're in town and are in need of a little taste of home.
The work continues, but now with a much larger platform at my fingertips: Last month, Eater launched Hay Comida en la Casa, a recurring column that creates a space for exploration, for the Latinx community to celebrate our traditions, and to help each other feel seen — not to prove our worth to the outside world, but for our own healing. The familiar phrase — what a parent would say to a child asking for fast food or for a treat when out and about — is rooted in the home. What we eat at home has a ripple effect on everything we do, including our sense of self-worth, the way we see the world, and the way we treat others.
As a column, Hay Comida plays off the child and parent dynamic of this phrase, focusing on family meals and familial culinary traditions within the Latinx community. Within this framework, there's ample opportunity to capture the breadth of the Latinx experience, from examining the ways that generations of Mexican cooks have harnessed the power of verdolagas to nourish their households to considering what breakfast might look like in a multicultural household. The goal is to help create a world where we never have to question our value based on the media's perception of us. And to remind us of the ancestral wisdom passed on by our ancestors providing us with strength and nourishment — one tamal, taco, or tostada at a time. —Serena Maria Daniels, Eater Detroit editor
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