314
From Sombreros
to Sincronizadas
Authenticity, Ethnicity, and the
Mexican Restaurant Industry
Marie Sarita Gaytán
University of California, Santa Cruz
While scholars agree that performances of authenticity and ethnicity
express social relations and reveal the socially constructed character of
identity, we know little about how these interactions contribute to the politics
of everyday life. By engaging in participant observation, drawing on
open-ended interviews, and analyzing the content of available data regarding
restaurant culture, the author argues that the accomplishment of Mexican
authenticity is a social construction. However, despite its socially created
qualities, the author contends that performances of authenticity and ethnicity
affect not only how individuals understand each other, but illustrate the
challenges faced by different groups of people in the commercial production
and consumption of identity.
Keywords: authenticity; consumption; ethnicity; representation; restaurants
Examining how individuals negotiate the social world and make sense of
their experiences reveals not only how people understand each other,
but illustrates how they view themselves in relation to those with whom
they interact. Authenticity, as an index of these encounters, provides the
opportunity to determine and communicate one’s place as an individual in
an increasingly global marketplace. While the search for authenticity highlights
the desire for “genuine” forms of expression, it also calls attention
to concerns regarding the interpretation and negotiation of contemporary
Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography
Volume 37 Number 3
June 2008 314-341
© 2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/0891241607309621
http://jce.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Author’s Note: I thank Sarah Babb, Lionel Cantú, Jay Demerath, George Lipsitz, Olga
Nájera-Ramírez, Tricia Rose, Candace West, Patricia Zavella, Bob Zussman, members of the
Black Popular Culture reading group, and the Transnational Popular Cultures cluster of the
Chicano/Latino Research Center for their advice and support throughout different stages of
this project. I am also grateful to Dr. Scott Hunt and the anonymous reviewers for providing
detailed suggestions that significantly improved the quality of this article.
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
consumer life. In a world where soft drinks are marketed as “the real thing”
(Handler 1986, 6) and restaurants are named “The Authentic Café” (Halter
2000, 19), consumption serves as a means through which authenticity
becomes a measure of the quality, efficacy, and legitimacy of one’s experience
in a particular setting.
Despite its fabricated character (Peterson 1997), performances of
authenticity influence how people identify with and become involved in
real world social, political, and cultural arrangements (Bauman and Briggs
1990). Central to these arrangements is the ability to enact distinction
(Bourdieu 1984) and recognize difference (Bell and Valentine 1997).
MacCannell (1973), for instance, noted that tourists consistently sought to
enter the back regions of their destinations in an attempt to encounter how
people different from themselves authentically lived. Like tourists, customers
of “ethnic” restaurants also desire backstage (Goffman 1959) experiences
and the “illusion of authenticity” when participating in different
culinary traditions (Lu and Fine 1995, 541). These traditions are often
linked to the meanings that people attach to their own ethnic identities
(Tuchman and Levine 1992; Waters 1990) and the ethnic identities of others
(Gabaccia 1998; Nenga 2003). As a measure of symbolic ethnicity
(Gans 1979), authenticity contributes to the process, performance, and
preservation of culture.
While scholars agree that performances of authenticity and ethnicity
express social relations and demonstrate the socially constructed character
of identity, we know little about how these interactions shape the politics of
everyday life. By engaging in participant observation in Mexican restaurants,
drawing on open-ended interviews with owners, managers, customers,
and reviewers of Mexican restaurants, and considering the content
of a range of available literature (i.e., restaurant industry reports, articles,
and books) related to restaurant culture, I argue that the accomplishment of
Mexican authenticity, whether maintained by Mexican owners or performed
by large restaurant chains, is a social construction. However,
despite its socially created qualities, performances of authenticity and ethnicity
affect not only how individuals understand each other, but illustrate
the challenges faced by different groups of people in the commercial production
and consumption of identity. Focusing on the consequences and
contradictions that are generated through different claims to authenticity, I
examine the salience of ethnicity in day-to-day situations and explore the
dynamics of cultural production.
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 315
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
316 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
Consuming Authenticity and Ethnicity
One of the first public nationwide debates over authenticity and Mexican
food began in 1972 when Diana Kennedy, a British national, published The
Cuisines of Mexico. Kennedy distinguished what she labeled authentic
“interior Mexican food” from the “mixed plates” found at Mexican restaurants
in the United States (Walsh 2004, 121). Referring to Americanized
versions of food as Tex-Mex, a name previously used to describe food that
was a combination of Texan and Mexican cuisine, Kennedy called for
greater awareness of authentic Mexican cooking. Her insistence on authentic
Mexican food and condemnation of inauthentic hybrid dishes was so
influential that restaurants began to describe their food as “interior
Mexican” in an attempt to follow the purist trend toward the authentic
Mexican recipes included in her collection (Kennedy 1972, 121). She has
even earned respect in Mexico where she was awarded the Order of the
Aztec Eagle, the Mexican government’s highest honor bestowed on foreigners,
for her international promotion of Mexican food. As the accolades
and esteem conferred on Diana Kennedy illustrate, matters of authenticity
are not limited to the maintenance of a particular culinary tradition, but
imply an attempt at the preservation of a greater cultural phenomenon—one
that extends beyond the parameters of cuisine, and directs attention to representation,
identity, and culture.
Scholars maintain that authenticity is a uniquely contemporary characteristic
that affects individual selfhood and social relationships (Boorstin
1961, Handler 1986, Trilling 1971). According to Trilling (1971), the concept
of authenticity signals a shift in how individuals relate to one another.
Authenticity, as he put it, “ . . . [is] part of the moral slang of our day [that]
points to the peculiar nature of our fallen condition, our anxiety over the
credibility of existence and of individual existences” (p. 93). Likewise,
Boorstin (1961) in his work on the changing nature of the American news
media, expressed concern over the presentation of authenticity and the significance
of illusion or “the menace of unreality” (p. 240). Troubled by the
growing trend to replace authentic events, scripts, and stories with inauthentic
ones, occurrences of “pseudo-events” interfered with the ability to
determine spontaneity; they obscured an underlying “reality,” and promoted
other pseudo-events. For example, the use of stereotypes, “stirred an
irrational and undiscriminating hunger for fancier, more varied items”
(pp. 38–39). As a form of pseudo-event, stereotypes “whetted the appetite”
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
for pre-determined images as opposed to spontaneous proceedings (p. 39).
Therefore, the spread of inauthentic pseudo-events is not only dangerous to
society at large, but is detrimental to individuals’ abilities to understand
their roles in these encounters. From this perspective, authenticity is a modern
cultural construct that sustains the assumption of a “true” experience or
occasion. In addition, this position holds that authenticity is a common
means through which individuals interpret their roles and the roles of others
in a variety of social contexts (Goffman 1959; Grazian 2003; MacCannell
1973; Peterson 1997).
Focusing on the culture of country music, Peterson (1997) described
how audiences anticipated certain types of performances that exemplified
the genre’s values. To gain notoriety, musicians were implicitly required to
abide by a set of specific pre-existing standards to fulfill the expectations of
their fans. The extent to which performers had to live up to consumers’
ideas about different encounters demonstrates the political relevance of representation
in the production and reproduction of culture. Similarly,
Grazian (2004) documented how consumer desire, as an influential set of
social forces, operated in Chicago blues clubs. For example, he found that
cultural myths pertaining to white audiences’ longing for black musicians
and employees was so powerful that many venues employed black men
exclusively as a means to create the impression of an authentic ambience.
In the space of the blues club, registers of race and ethnicity served as key
signifiers in the presentation of authentic cultural displays.
Performances of “ethnic” authenticity are generally seen as highlighting
“genuine” characteristics, customs, and traditions of specific groups of
people (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). When probed about the personal
meanings attached to their ethnic identities, Waters’ (1990) informants
agreed that “having” an ethnicity made them feel special and provided them
the opportunity to take part in a host of traditions such as eating “ethnic”
food. Some confusion was apparent, such as one woman who explained that
she celebrated her Irish heritage by eating sauerkraut. Misappropriations
aside, consuming particular food was tantamount to displaying cultural
pride. The decision to eat certain types of “ethnic” cuisine symbolizes a
form of self expression, but can also delineate a boundary between “the collective
self and the other” (Ohnuki-Tierney 1993, 3). Consequently, dining
preferences may represent a positive attachment to one’s culture and denote
discrimination against others.
Goldman (1992), in her research on cooking and colonialism, maintains
that accounts of cultural authority in texts such as cookbooks, memoirs, and
novels illustrate the conscious and unconscious presence of “the self.” In
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 317
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
her estimation, the insistence on authentic cuisine not only implies the existence
of inauthentic food, but reveals the ubiquity of self-assertions that
affirm and appropriate the cultural expressions of people from different ethnic
backgrounds. Hence, making claims to authenticity is capable of signaling
an array of implicit and explicit power relations. Further developing
the link between politics and authenticity, Abarca (2004) explains that the
“gastronomical desire” for planned or genuine authenticity, while always
rooted in cultural and socio-economic assumptions, “carries real colonizing
attitudes and implications” that too easily essentialize certain ethnic groups
(p. 18). As a result, assertions of authentic “ethnic” food espouse romantic
ideas about the people who are typically associated with certain cuisines.
Such processes stifle creative expression while at the same time reproduce
the notion that some groups of people are more “exotic” and “ethnic” than
others. Weary of the unquestioned ideals of cultural authenticity, Abarca
contends that consumers should be more critical of the practices by which
“our rather ordinary words and common phrases” influence how people
from particular backgrounds are perceived (p. 19).
These findings point to the importance of authenticity and ethnicity not
just as measures of the legitimacy of a specific cultural experience, but as
concepts through which a variety of commonplace ideas are generated.
What is more, performances of authenticity and ethnicity sustain commonly
held beliefs about particular cultures, places, and people. Therefore,
it is essential to examine, in greater detail, how notions of authenticity and
ethnicity are negotiated by actors themselves in the very locations where
such interactions take place. While research suggests that a diverse range of
relations are expressed when individuals make claims about authenticity,
few studies address how these interactions unfold and influence the production
of culture. As a result, I pay close attention to the social conditions
under which such assertions order the terms of representation and contribute
to the politics of everyday life.
Exploring the Culture of Mexican Restaurants
Restaurants provide an empirically rich point of entry for observing interpersonal
exchanges as part and parcel of the creation, enactment, and reproduction
of symbolic meaning (Fine 1996; Finkelstein 1989; Spang 2000).
As unique sites for observing “public ethnicity” (Lu and Fine 1995, 536),
restaurants bring together social actors as participants and spectators in performances
of culture. From September 2000 through June 2001, I became
a participant observer in Mexican restaurants in Amherst, Northampton;
318 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Springfield, Massachusetts; and Hartford, Connecticut.1
Additionally, I
conducted interviews with customers, reviewers, owners, and managers of
these restaurants. To gather a wide range of materials concerning the social
relations of Mexican restaurants, I collected copies of flyers, menus, web
pages, restaurant industry reports, restaurant reviews, and take-out containers.
Thus, this project draws on participant observation, open-ended interviews,
and content analysis to examine the culture of Mexican restaurants.
The towns of Amherst and Northampton are located approximately
90 miles west of Boston in the Pioneer Valley, and are small communities
with a primarily Anglo-American population. In contrast, Springfield,
Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut are larger urban centers with a
more ethnically diverse population.2
These cities are located within a 25
and 45 minute drive from the Pioneer Valley. When this research was carried
out, none of these locations had a large Mexican or Mexican-American
population, and therefore restaurants catered to a non-Mexican clientele.3
In each of these restaurants, I spent time observing the daily routines of
management, employees, and customers. While some of the restaurants
were open for breakfast, I generally conducted my fieldwork during the
lunch and dinnertime hours. With my notebook in hand, I recorded the
décor, layout, and atmosphere of each restaurant while sipping a coffee,
enjoying a beer, or eating a meal—indeed, becoming a participant observer
in Mexican restaurants was quite a savory experience.
With the help of my colleagues who were personally acquainted with several
restaurant owners, I began compiling a list of potential informants. After
conducting my first interview, I drew on the guidelines of snowball sampling
by asking each restaurateur for the names and phone numbers of people they
knew who owned or managed Mexican restaurants. I also searched the
Internet and the Yellow Pages to locate restaurants outside of the Pioneer
Valley. Aside from the management at Taco Bell who invoked “company policy”
by not talking to anyone about their restaurants, arranging interviews
with owners and managers of Mexican restaurants was fairly straightforward.
In total, I interviewed eight owners and managers of Mexican restaurants
(two women and six men). These interviews were conducted face-to-face
and included open-ended questions. They lasted from 1 to 2 hours, were
tape recorded, and then transcribed. My conversations with customers of
Mexican restaurants (12 women, 7 men) lasted from 15 minutes to an hour
and were collected in restaurants and coffee shops in the towns of Amherst
and Northampton. I approached people as they ordered, ate, and left the
various establishments. Initially I was nervous about making contact with
people in such an informal manner, but folks were quite eager to share their
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 319
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
ideas about Mexican restaurants. Equally enthusiastic to talk to me were
restaurant reviewers. My three interviews with restaurant reviewers (three
women) took place after I contacted area newspapers that published restaurant
reviews. In one case, a newspaper editor would not reveal the “true”
name of its reviewer because he wanted to protect the reviewer’s anonymity.
Of the three interviews, one was conducted face-to-face and two were carried
out over the telephone.
Unlike my experiences with customers and restaurant reviewers, establishing
rapport with owners and managers of Mexican restaurants was more
complicated than I expected. For instance, several were concerned about
what my project was trying to “prove.” Despite assuring them that my project
was exploratory, and therefore not intent on confirming a particular thesis,
on finishing interviews I was frequently re-questioned about what my
“real” motives were for studying local Mexican restaurants. I suspect that
some people thought that I was a restaurant reviewer determined to critique
the authenticity of their cuisine. Others were eager to talk about their
restaurants in relation to the local restaurant scene. Interestingly, in these
cases conversations generally took place in both English and Spanish. To be
sure, talking to me in Spanish served as a means to affirm their authenticity
as Mexican owners and managers of Mexican restaurants, while it also
operated as a way to test, or to authenticate, my intentions as a researcher.
Catering Mexican Authenticity
Sipping hot chocolate in the subterranean dining room of a local coffee
shop, Adrian, a restaurant reviewer whose career in journalism spanned
over 20 years, revealed “I like it authentic, real, from back home, the motherland.”
Although she had only recently acquired the position of senior food
writer, Adrian was adamant about the importance of a reviewer’s ability to
accurately evaluate the authenticity of a restaurant’s cuisine. When she was
unable to gauge a restaurant’s authenticity, Adrian brought along friends or
colleagues to assist her. Such was the case when she reviewed an
Argentinean restaurant. In her words, “I decided to take a friend from Chile
with me to gauge how authentic it was. Everyone spoke Spanish, they were
all from Argentina.” Similarly, Catherine, a reviewer whom I talked to by
telephone, explained how she intuitively knew when a restaurant was
authentic by observing the rapport an owner established with customers. As
she put it, “The owner is cooking, takes his time. The restaurant is full of
warmth, of something that is common, that is family . . . If you and I are
eating here, then we’re family.”
320 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 321
Adrian and Catherine’s observations suggest that authenticity is an
important measure in determining the quality of a dining experience.
However, their responses also show that evaluating a restaurant’s authenticity
requires more than just an appraisal of a restaurant’s menu, recipes,
or ingredients. Specifically, a restaurant’s atmosphere is vital to an assessment
of authenticity. Like reviewers, customers described the ambiance of
a restaurant in terms of people and not décor. Frequently commenting on
the presence or absence of “Hispanic” or “Mexican” employees, the ability
to interact with Spanish-speaking employees was a central means by which
many assessed their experiences. One customer recognized that a particular
Mexican restaurant was authentic because she could “order in Spanish and
the order was given back in Spanish,” while another stated that when “all
the cooks [were] Hispanic,” he could more readily determine if some
restaurants were more authentic than others. Customers and reviewers also
looked for other cues. As a customer put it, “When you see Mexicans eating
there it gives you the feeling that it’s authentic and not just yuppies eating
burritos and sipping margaritas,” while a reviewer noted that she knew
a restaurant was authentic because labor activist César Chavez dined there
when he used to visit the area.
Customers were more likely to describe a restaurant’s atmosphere as
“not quite Mexican” when college students worked in the dining room. For
example, one remarked that because she could not speak Spanish to the
person working at the register, this contributed to a “very Noho” (an abbreviated
version of Northampton) atmosphere that affected her ability to
“escape that we’re in New England.” Much like Grazian’s (2004) observations
in blues clubs, the presence of employees from different ethnic backgrounds
allowed customers and reviewers to distinguish between experiences
that were “authentically Mexican” and those that were not. Despite the fact
that the vast majority of Spanish-speaking staff were from El Salvador, customers
and reviewers did not question the possibility that their interactions
were not with “authentic” Mexican employees.
Although customers and reviewers readily acknowledged the importance
of authenticity, they were uncritical of the cuisine or atmosphere
offered at the local Mexican restaurants that they considered “inauthentic.”
In one case, a reviewer observed, “They make no pretense of serving traditional
Mexican fare . . . it’s more whimsical and Americanized than loyal to
any particular ethnic cuisine,” while a customer remarked, “No, it’s not
authentic Mexican, but they don’t claim to be.” Even when a restaurant was
unsuccessful at maintaining an authentic décor, reviewers still expressed
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
confidence in making determinations about its authenticity. Such was the
case with Jennifer, who explained that despite a restaurant’s Formica tables
and plastic chairs, she could still recognize “something real about the cuisine.”
Taken together, customers and reviewers’ comments imply that there
is more than one way to achieve authenticity and to evaluate those accomplishments.
In addition, their responses suggest that there is something
about how particular claims of authenticity are expressed that contributes to
their assessment of their experiences. Turning to presentations of authenticity
and ethnicity in Mexican restaurants, I examine the production of
identity and the conditions of representation.
Commemorative Authenticity: “It’s Got a Mexican Soul . . .
and That Says a Lot”
Maintaining loyalty to tradition was central to how Enrique organized
the overall layout of his restaurant. For instance, he labeled menu entrées
“comida de la gente” (food of the people), and adorned the windows of his
restaurant with decals that read “hecho en Mexico” (made in Mexico) and
“viva la raza!” (a rallying cry made famous during the Chicano Rights
Movement of the 1960s). Describing what he called an “essence,” Enrique
elaborated,
For me, when I think about Mexican food I think about what kind of food you
find at Mexican kitchens at home, not so much at a restaurant. It’s more like
what I would find at a quinceañera (cotillion), what I would find at a boda
(wedding).
According to Enrique, the “essence” of authentic Mexican food is linked to
cultural celebrations such as quinceañeras and weddings. While unable to
fully replicate these environments within the context of his restaurant, he is
able to offer his customers Mexican “home-style” cooking that celebrates
Mexican identity by both challenging and reinforcing people’s perceptions
of what and when “real” Mexican food is consumed.
Differentiating himself from his competition, he described how his
restaurant, Los Cabos, stood out from the other local offerings:
If you go to that restaurant, what it does is takes a variety of ethnic foods, wraps
them into a large flour tortilla and calls it a burrito. So what you have is a stirfried
chicken burrito with roasted bell peppers, mushrooms, and yogurt, you
know? [That] has nothing to do with what my Tía (aunt) Ana serves.
322 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 323
As he saw it, the use of unconventional burrito ingredients symbolized a
departure from traditional food preparation.
Expressing his disappointment at the alterations restaurateurs commonly
made to accommodate people’s perceptions of Mexican food, Enrique
detailed his refusal to compromise the traditional names of his menu items.
In one case he challenged people’s ideas about quesadillas:
It would be easy for me to sell the quesadilla with your choice of flour or corn
tortillas. Instead, what I say is let’s call the flour tortillas with cheese inside
for what they are, sincronizadas. Sin-chro-neez-ahh-dah [in an American
English accent], well, that’s made with flour tortillas. That’s the difference so
one day when they [his primarily Anglo clientele] go to Mexico, they’re not
shocked that their quesadilla isn’t made with a flour tortilla, and they’ll know
what a sincronizada is.
Enrique’s resistance against mainstream ideas about Mexican cuisine in
general, and the local versions of Mexican food in particular, manifested
not only in his menu, but also in the advertising and décor of his restaurant.
When Los Cabos first opened, a college newspaper published a lukewarm
review that praised the cuisine but commented extensively on its ambiance
and “lack of Mexican charm.” Recounting the incident, Enrique, clearly
bothered by the remark explained:
There’s no sombreros, zarapes, or piñatas. . . it has a Mexican soul and you
know that says a lot. It’s not salt it isn’t pepper, it’s not nice tile or a beautiful
chair. There’s a spirit about it only those who are very proud of what
Mexican is or how it should be represented can get it.
Symbols such as sombreros, zarapes, and piñatas, as Enrique put it, presented
a limited version of Mexican identity, one that neglected to consider
the “huge history of great art” produced and appreciated by Mexicans on
both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. In his estimation, stereotypical
imagery could not contend with the “soul” and “spirit” fostered by presenting
a commemorative approach to Mexican culture. With ads stating
“Evite el estereotipo!” (avoid the stereotype), “Mexican food that Mexicans
would want to eat,” and “Mexican food like you’ve never had it in New
England,” Enrique actively engaged his customers in a political and cultural
relationship that invoked authenticity as a significant and essential aspect of
ethnic identity. Additionally, Enrique’s comments suggest that even in commemorative
versions of authenticity, consumers’ preconceived ideas about
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
how specific people create “charm” produce conflict when challenges are
presented that extend the possibilities of available ethnic representations.
Loyalty to tradition was also a theme that emerged when I spoke with
Ricardo, a restaurateur who recently moved to New England. Working collaboratively
with his seven brothers, their first restaurant, Las Rosas, was
named after their mother, and subsequent restaurants were named after
other family members. This kind of environment, Ricardo explained,
“emphasizes that we are family and that people can tell we are family and
that people will feel like part of our family.” Serving food typical of their
home state of Jalisco, Mexico, they are accustomed to altering preparation
styles and levels of spiciness to suit local palates. Even with such changes,
Ricardo maintained:
Our food is yes, really Mexican . . . It’s authentic in the way that if you go to
Mexico, to our hometown…well, it’s a little different there, more spicy. Yes,
it is authentic, but with a style from this side of the border.
According to this statement, while Ricardo asserts that his restaurant is
“really Mexican,” it is only authentic in comparison with Mexican food
served within the United States. Claiming that although his restaurant is
“the most Mexican in the area,” Ricardo states that in order for it to be
“truly” authentic, it would also need:
. . . four or five small tables. Why? Because the woman of the house, the
mother, the grandmother are really the ones who are going to cook. But if you
go to a big restaurant like in Mexico City, there isn’t anything that Mexican,
it’s more commercial. So, of all the restaurants here, I believe this is the most
authentic.
Just above, Ricardo implies that authentic Mexican food is unavailable
at “big” restaurants in large cities; instead, it comes from a kitchen where
food is prepared by “the woman of the house.” Ricardo’s description of a
mother or grandmother preparing food in a kitchen as a measure of an
authentic dining experience is ironic, especially when considering that no
women were employed in his restaurant. Moreover, his restaurant’s dining
area accommodates 60 customers while the bar area seats 25 customers—
a far greater number than the “four or five small tables” he identifies.
However, this does not stop Ricardo from promoting an authentic “familystyle”
experience so “that people will feel like part of our family.” While he
concedes that the food he serves is not entirely authentic, he presents it as
324 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
if it were. Ricardo reveals that Mexican food does not have to be authentic
to appear authentic. Moreover, his comments suggest that performances of
Mexican identity are inextricable from assumptions about class, gender,
and family even in commemorative representations of ethnicity.
David, originally from New Mexico, opened his restaurant because “the
area needed an authentic, traditional-type Mexican restaurant.” Emphasizing
the importance of preserving his family’s recipes, David was interested in
reaching-out to the community “to hand-down a tradition or share a tradition
to the people of New England from the Southwest.” Seeing his restaurant
as representing Mexican culture, David explained the differences
between his menu and that of a large Mexican chain restaurant located
nearby:
. . . a taco is a taco [but] it’s what you put inside your taco [that] makes it
different. Burritos are an American invention, there’s no such thing as burritos
in Mexico and the only reason that I serve them is because people love
them.
Other alterations that David made to his menu included the addition of quesadillas
and taquitos because “people kept requesting them.” Décor was less
relevant in David’s opinion, especially when it came to displaying his heritage,
“It’s not important in a sense because really and truly I’m a MexicanAmerican,
and the food I serve is traditional Mexican and New Mexican
home-style cooking.” In David’s estimation, his Mexican-American background
qualified him to represent authentic Mexican and New Mexican
food. David’s performance of authenticity, like that of Enrique and
Ricardo’s, is informed by claims that are unavailable to non-Mexican
restaurateurs—in this case, tradition, family, and ethnic heritage rooted in
Mexican culture.
As a social construction, authenticity generates a unique set of contradictions
for those owners and managers who situate themselves as representatives
of a specific collective identity. While they are able to display
personal values associated with their presentation of ethnic heritage, they
must also make concessions to fulfill certain customer expectations. In their
research on the presentation of “ethnic” authenticity, Lu and Fine (1995)
observed that the owners of Chinese restaurants often made changes to their
cuisine to suite the “standards of the American palate” (p. 540). These alterations
were based on aesthetic values linked to cultural discourses and the
cost of particular food ingredients. Customers desired the “illusion of
authenticity” regardless of modifications pertaining to the use of spices,
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 325
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
methods of preparation, and styles of service (p. 541). Invoking innovative
and adaptive measures, owners and chefs of Chinese restaurants cooked
according to tradition even when adhering to customer preferences.
Similarly, Ferraro (2002) found that the owners of Mexican restaurants in
Los Angeles, California, used various names to describe menu items as a
way to display their observance of authentic culinary styles and methods of
preparation. According to this research, abiding by the guidelines of
authenticity is an important and complicated endeavor that requires a combination
of flexibility, foresight, and strategy. More importantly, however,
these studies suggest that there are unique challenges for owners and chefs
of “ethnic” restaurants whose performances of authenticity convey values
that uphold the integrity of a particular culture.
In spite of the use of strategic measures in the presentation of authenticity,
many restaurateurs were hesitant when it came to making menu alterations,
and continued their ambitions to broaden customer’s ideas about
Mexican food and Mexican culture. This is fittingly exemplified in
Enrique’s discussion about serving tortilla chips:
That’s why for the longest time we never served chips in our restaurant. The
essence of the fact of that’s not how we start our food, it’s not with a basket of
chips. The only reason we serve a basket of chips in our restaurant is to break
that in-between time when the food is waiting, but it is not something special.
Enrique intentionally excluded tortilla chips from his menu, but later compromised
and offered them because of consistent customer demand. On his
menu, tortilla chips were listed as totopos—a name that he insisted more
accurately reflected the custom of consuming fried tortillas, and not as
“something special” to “home-made” Mexican cuisine. Still not entirely
comfortable with his addition of a menu item that he did not interpret as
authentically Mexican, Enrique added:
Americans can’t take it as an essence like if they go over to my house, they’ll
get a basket of chips. That’s not what my sister Veronica does when she first
gets home, fries the tortillas for the chips, you know?
In commemorative presentations of authenticity, ethnicity is depicted as
both challenging and conforming to a dominant set of ideas that portray
identity as fixed, stable, and recognizable. For example, when Enrique displays
Chicano/Latino artwork throughout his restaurant, he sees this decision
as a symbolic act that expands his customers’ knowledge of Mexican art
326 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
and Chicano heritage. Despite Enrique’s desire to influence his customers’
ideas about the diversity of Mexican culture, his strategies were unable to
communicate a “different way of looking at Mexican food” because of
expectations that he explained were put forth by “the standards of lo
gringo” (that of American or non-Hispanic origin).
These types of struggles, as Gray (2004, p. xv) points out, call attention
to the relationship of representations to “actual structural positions, social
practices, cultural meanings, and the complex constellation of power” in
which performances of authenticity take place. For members of historically
marginalized communities, consumption is a key site where they are able to
construct an identity that manages, contests, and extends common cultural
categorizations that reproduce both oppositional and conventional representations
(Kates and Belk 2001). However, as these owners’ responses
suggest, despite attempts to affirmatively represent their traditions or present
their own versions of authenticity, they are often unable to disrupt
mainstream ideas of what is and what is not “authentic.” When established
sets of expectations are challenged (e.g., not offering tortilla chips), these
efforts conflict with customer demand and desire—both shaped by long
standing social forces that impose market-oriented notions of authenticity
that cater to “unreal” events over “real” ones (Boorstin 1961).
Hybrid Inauthenticity: “The Superbowl
and Salsa are Synonymous”
Doug, an Anglo restaurateur, had the “burrito concept” in mind for several
years before opening his restaurant. Living in a college town, he
explained that a “burrito joint” was an appropriate addition to the area’s
other “ethnic” restaurants. He described his restaurant’s food as follows:
It’s Mexican-American, well, more American than anything else, what we do
as I see it. Sort of like pizza. We produce the Americanized version of something
that’s supposedly Mexican, and, in a way, authentic, but for the most
part, it’s an Americanized version of some foreign food like Chinese food
that ends up appealing to the palate of people in this country, like fried rice,
’cause it’s more American than anything else.
Remarking that the burrito is both “Mexican-American” and “more
American than anything else,” Doug is able to distinguish his restaurant’s
burritos from more “traditional” burritos. His observations are based on a
distinction between different types of ingredients:
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 327
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
328 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
Most of what’s out there for a Mexican burrito has got a lot of fatty stuff in
it. Like a lot of people perceive refried beans as made with lard, and they are,
for the most part. We don’t use refried beans, in fact, we don’t use pinto
beans. Predominantly we use black beans because they are more appealing to
a broader market than pinto beans.
Ironically, part of Doug’s success in the Mexican restaurant industry is
a result of the perception that Mexican food is unhealthy. Capitalizing on
what he calls the “burrito trend,” he explains, “as an Americanized version
of food, it [the burrito] fits into a nice classification system that’s somehow
there for whatever reason.” Indeed, this “classification system” works to his
benefit, even when it comes to the preparation of his restaurant’s tacos:
Our taco is really no more than a burrito than anything else. We call it a taco
because it’s smaller than the burrito and that was an arbitrary decision that
seemed to make intuitive sense to our customers, and so that’s what we called it.
Relying on an “arbitrary” decision to create tacos as similar, yet smaller
versions of their burritos, reveals an approach to authenticity that adjusts to
customer demand through a hybrid preparation and production of Mexican
cuisine, one that in this case presents tacos as a different version of burritos.
As he sees it, his customers are aware that they are not eating “truly
authentic” Mexican food, but are instead consuming “healthy” and “funky”
Mexican food. Even when it comes to the salsa, for Doug, “it’s an illustration
of something Americanized, and now, salsa’s our thing. The Super
Bowl and salsa are synonymous.”
During our interview, I inquired about an El Salvadoran flag propped in
a corner of the large indoor menu situated above the open kitchen.
Explaining that the majority of his employees were El Salvadoran immigrants,
he described how their input with regard to music and recipes was
reflected throughout his restaurant. For example, one employee suggested
the creation of an El Salvadoran burrito made with ingredients she cooked
with in her own kitchen. Doug remarked, “I tried it, and liked it. It’s a
simple recipe and we adopted it and it was a sorta ethnic thing to have as
an option . . . we’ve never really taken it off of the menu.” As a “sorta ethnic”
option, the inclusion of an El Salvadoran burrito reflects the hybrid
inauthenticity through which Doug presents and markets his restaurant.
Sara, originally from California, described her style of cooking as “yuppified”
and distinct from the food prepared by her Mexican mother. When
referring to her menu, she stated, “I stay away from traditional Mexican
food that I love because I’ve created this type of very quick, fresh food.”
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 329
Emphasizing that her menu does not reflect a traditional or authentic
Mexican fare, she explained her interest in flavors and spices that parallel
those found in Mexico:
I’ve found this similarity with Asian food and Mexican food. There’s a very
big similarity with the freshness and the produce such as tomatoes, squashes,
all the salsas. The cooking techniques are also very similar to say, Southeast
Asian food, which I love, and it’s very accessible to the common palate.
Discovering a link between cross-ethnic cooking styles, Sara builds on similarities
which accentuate the seasonings used in different cuisines. For
instance, in many of her dishes she adds peanut sauce for a “Thai flavor”
and feta cheese for a “Mediterranean flavor.” When describing the combination
of ingredients, she elaborates on a hybrid culinary approach, “When
I first opened, people weren’t used to experiencing a Thai chicken burrito
with a rice and bean burrito. I’ve been able to slowly bring in different
things and mix them all up.” Like Doug, Sara refrains from making any
claims to traditional Mexican cooking.
Doug and Sara’s customers, while identifying their restaurants as serving
Mexican cuisine, take notice of their hybrid inauthentic approach. Able
to distinguish the differences from more traditional fares, customers and
reviewers shared a range of comments about their restaurants specifically:
It feels hippie-like.You sit on tree stumps and the menu isn’t wildly Mexican.
Chicken-cilantro salad doesn’t strike me as Mexican, or their Cajun-fish taco.
Yeah, they have pickled cabbage in one of their burritos. They’ve got the
salsas going on. It’s multi-ethnic, packed into a Mexican style.
It’s a gourmet burrito place; they’ve glamorized it into something not
traditional.
If you’re looking for authentic Mexican food, don’t come here. However,
if you want Americanized Mexican food that’s much better/cheaper than
Taco Bell, this place is great.
I’m from California, so I know what authentic Mexican food is like…and
it’s not anything like La Fiesta restaurant.
These remarks show that customers and reviewers carefully evaluate the
extent to which the cuisine they consume abides by a standard of authenticity
that adheres to particular aesthetics, menu items, and ingredients.
According to Tuchman and Levine (1992), the inevitable “naturalness”
of products related to specific ethnic traditions is often associated with the
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
created character of ethnicity. Examining the internal logic of “ethnic” cultural
invention, they show how “eating Chinese” became a New York
Jewish custom that reflected articulations of self-identity. In some cases,
Chinese food provided a “biographical continuity” for different generations
of New York Jews through the linking of cultural themes and fond memories
when dining in Chinese restaurants (p. 401). As they put it, socially
constructed cultural differences are “ . . . social facts, enduring and real in
their consequences, yet malleable to reinterpretation by future generations”
(p. 401). In the context of performances of authenticity, these social facts
symbolize innovative cultural representations and reveal the potential for
diverse meanings of “eating ethnic.”
While Mexican culinary culture is central to Doug and Sara’s advertising,
décor, and menu, they do not make assertions of Mexican authenticity.
In its place, they emphasize qualities such as “freshness” and “alternative”
methods of food preparation. Through the use of hybrid inauthenticity, their
restaurants highlight the vitality of different styles of cooking and observe
the unique contributions (e.g., ingredients and seasonings) of a variety of
cultures (e.g., El Salvadoran and Thai). More importantly, however, they
respect the role and maintain the integrity of Mexican cultural forms. In
other words, instead of appropriating small parts of Mexican culture in a
piecemeal fashion, Doug and Sarah’s restaurants honor Mexican ethnicity
by drawing on it as the primary means to create something new (El
Salvadoran burrito and Thai chicken burrito). Hence, implementing a
hybrid inauthentic approach is a valuable method of honoring tradition even
as it departs from tradition in its pristine form.
Americanized Authenticity: “Now You Can’t Do Mexican”
James, the manager of a popular international Mexican restaurant chain,
began his career at El Torito,4
a California-based corporation. When I asked
James why there were no El Torito restaurants in New England, he
explained that New Englanders were not “ready for that type of Mexican
food.” Conversely, the chain he currently managed would not be well
received in California, “because it’s too Americanized; we haven’t been
brought up on Mexican food like people in California, not to mention produce
availability year round; that kind of drives the menu.” From James’s
perspective, because of their different degrees of exposure to Mexican food,
customers in California and New England diverged in their Mexican food
preferences. His restaurant is “too Americanized” for Californian palates,
but sufficiently “Americanized” for New England palates. Comparing the
330 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
restaurant chain he manages now to his experiences at El Torito, he
explained:
In recent years we’ve gotten a little more traditional than we used to be. Well,
El Torito, it’s more authentic. We took on some of El Torito’s ways. Like we
have a certain salsa, have gone to thicker corn tortillas, which are way better
than our old ones used to be, way more authentic, you know.
In moving toward the “more authentic” ways of El Torito, James’s menu
offered foods such as “traditional nachos,” “fajita pizza,” and a “Buffalo
chicken sandwich” served on a “Mexican-style bun.”
James remarked that it was important for his restaurant to “try to become
everything” to reach a wider customer base. As a result, the menu evolved
to satisfy consumer trends:
We have ribs, grilled burritos, so a bit of the Tex-Mex has melded into our
menu as a necessity to compete with Chili’s . . . Now you can’t do Mexican.
I think you have to offer other food to capture that one of four people that
doesn’t eat Mexican food.
Again and again, James emphasized the need to “capture” potential customers
who do not normally eat Mexican food. To accomplish this, the restaurant
must adhere to an “Americanized” menu.As he sees it, people who do not normally
eat Mexican food “think it’s hot, spicy; they think that’s the only way
you can get Mexican food. I compare it to Italian food, it’s very flavorful, but
not everything’s hot.” James’ description of people’s perceptions of Mexican
food as spicy or hot, in combination with his comparison with Italian food,
corresponds to those values put forth by large corporations, whereby Mexican
food is marketed as “familiar” as opposed to distinct in and of itself.
Down the road from James’s restaurant, Daniella, a manager of another
chain restaurant, told me the story of the Mexican vaquero:
The name [of the restaurant] is based on the Mexican vaquero, who is the
Mexican cowboy. If you look at the front of the menu it gives you the story
of the Mexican vaquero—so our mood is based on food that you cook on the
range, the Mexican range.
The restaurant’s mood, as she explained, was vital to its theme. With its
Mexican vaquero logo, Daniella’s restaurant is able to offer a wide range of
both “Mexican cowboyish stuff,” and “authentic cowboy stuff.” For example,
menu items include “campfire queso,” “portabello fajitas,” and a “border
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 331
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
T-bone steak.” To maintain an “authentic atmosphere,” Daniella’s restaurant
must “readapt those philosophies [pertaining to traditional Mexican cuisine]
to go along with the guests, the customers. It has been changed to where
you can’t go on without your theme, it [the restaurant] just won’t survive.”
The image of the Mexican cowboy worked well with the restaurant’s
theme. For instance, offering selections such as “smoked barbeque ribs”
and “mesquite-grilled salmon,” the restaurant’s menu contributed to ideas
about “traditional Mexican favorites” through the inclusion of nontraditional
Mexican entrees. According to Daniella, creating a comfortable
atmosphere is also a big part of the restaurant’s success:
Atmosphere has a lot to do with people’s perceptions. They walk in here and
they already have a preconceived notion [of how the food will taste] by how
clean our restaurant is, by what they are looking at. If they walked in here
[and saw] four walls painted white, with no Mexican music on, with 1970s
music, or whatever the case may be, they aren’t going to feel that homey
comfort. I’m sitting by the campfire range eating Mexican food, it’s huge.
Apparently Daniella’s “guests” appreciate the atmosphere of the restaurant:
“we get it on comment cards all the time; the atmosphere is awesome, it’s
warm, it’s cozy, you feel like you’re sitting in Mexico, you know, it’s
authentic.”
Elaborately decorated with giant saddles, colorful blankets, and rustic
lanterns, the dining area stood out from the cordoned-off bar area that was
adorned with neon-lights, large screen televisions, and life-size beer advertisements.
Daniella explained:
Well, we try to keep it all the same flare, you know. We don’t have that
Mexican bar-type atmosphere because you can’t generate business out of
that. It has to be functional as well, so it’s not as authentic in the bar area as
it is out here.
According to Daniella, although customers enjoy eating in a Mexican
atmosphere, they do not enjoy drinking in one. The “authentic” dining area
and the “not as authentic” bar area fittingly capture a corporate approach to
“ethnic” dining: ethnic, but not too ethnic, authentic, but not too authentic.
Like James, Daniella expressed concern about those people who do not
normally eat Mexican food:
Down South, they don’t need to have a Porterhouse steak [on the menu].
People in the Northeast don’t know Mexican food, so there are many people
332 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 333
who are like, ‘I don’t know Mexican food, I will not go there.’ But now we
have a lot to offer people, food that isn’t Mexican.
In a large-scale industry study titled “Riding the U.S. Ethnic Food Tide,”
consultants suggested that “A company must understand how cuisines will
develop, identify the opportunities, and capture them before others do”
(Promar International 1998, 2). However, before they do so, companies
ought to consider the implications of authenticity. As a different industry
publication advised:
. . . presenting a mass American market5
with rigorously authentic products
is not only impossible, but inadvisable. Unless you’re talking specifically to
the heart of an ethnic community, you don’t want to offer truly authentic ethnic
. . . it’s just too unfamiliar to the wider group. (Decker 2003, 113)
From this perspective, the maintenance of familiarity, such as the atmosphere,
cuisine, and mood of a restaurant should suitably follow tastes of the
“American market.” Moreover, “successful” authentic “ethnic” products:
will respect that spectrum’s boundaries, sticking close to traditional cuisines
that reflect American tastes. Once a product goes past the line of comfort and
accessibility . . . it will not be seen as a real choice. It will be seen as something
that is not convenient and not comfortable. And then it becomes foreign
again. (pp. 113-114)
In her article “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance,” hooks (1992)
explores the commodification of racial “otherness.” Looking specifically at
desire through the lens of race, she shows how discourses and practices successfully
promote the enjoyment of racial difference as a “new delight,
more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling”
(p. 21). Concerned with cultural arrangements that celebrate ethnicity as
“a spice, [a] seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white
culture,” hooks describes the unconscious as a site of contestation where
capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism continue to re-inscribe relational
hierarchies (p. 21). As she sees it, this type of longing is deeply embedded
in ideas of white superiority and the West’s crisis with its own identity—
both rooted in the learned libidinal aspiration to dominate. Shaping a largescale
restaurant chain according to the desires of an “American market”
situates ethnicity not as a central expression of heritage or culture, but
instead as “a spice” that accommodates the “desires” of an Anglo customer
base whose consumption practices are considered hierarchically distinct.
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Adhering to the logic of an “American market” systematically fails to
recognize non-Anglo individuals as consumers of “ethnic” cuisine. With
structures of exclusion built into the commercial organization of ethnic
restaurants, it is no surprise that attributes such as “comfort” and “accessibility”
trump qualities of cultural uniqueness. In such circumstances,
people who are not classified as “American” remain unrecognized for their
participation in and contribution to social, economic, and cultural expressions
of public consumption. If consumption is one “place” where scholars
insist the terms of citizenship are put into practice (Dávila 2001; GarcíaCanclini
2001; McRobbie 1999), then those consumers who are not “mainstream
Northern and Western European” are excluded from particular
privileges of citizenship. These processes illustrate not only the limited
value of cultural agency in large-scale marketing practices, but also reveal
the limitations that hierarchies of exclusion place on different groups of
people. Through the promotion of an Americanized authenticity, the
vibrancy of cultural forms that celebrate identity and heritage are collapsed
into narratives that emphasize similarity by staying “close to traditional
cuisines that reflect American tastes” (Decker 2003, 114). In such arrangements,
“authenticity itself becomes a hot commodity,” fostering conditions
that commemorate similarity as opposed to difference (Halter 2000, 18).
Fast-and-Easy Inauthenticity: “Yo Quiero Un Taco”
What the standardization of a formal Mexican cuisine did for the growth
of the Mexican restaurant industry, mechanization did for the spread of the
Mexican fast food market. Taco Bell, the most famous and successful of
these outfits started in 1962, and serves 60 million people a week (Baldwin
1999). In his authorized biography, the founder of Taco Bell, Glen Bell,
eager to capitalize on the fast food cultural transformation taking place
throughout Southern California in the 1950s, described how ordering tacos
at a full-service restaurant was a slow process, but that alterations to the
method of preparation could speed-up production. After visiting several
local Mexican restaurants, he experimented with wire baskets and stainless
steel holders in an attempt to create an easily replicated taco shell. Together
with a “taco slide” and “taco rail,” Bell developed a taco production line,
and introduced the first manufactured taco shell (Baldwin 1999, 64).
Each new restaurant was commemorated with grand opening “fiestas,”
and some included “Hispanic men in gold-embroidered jackets [playing]
guitars and violins . . . Women wearing embroidered blouses, full skirts,
and colorful woven belts [who] raised their arms, clicked castanets, and
334 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
laughed as they danced” (p. 74). Bell and his business partners participated
in numerous fiestas over the years. In keeping with the Mexican theme, Bell
“felt a Taco Bell should look like a building that sold tacos; he asked Robert
[his architect] to give the new restaurant a south-of-the-border look”
(p. 100). Together with the original “Taco Bell boy,” described as “a smiling
Hispanic wearing a serape and sombrero,” Bell had a product, a theme,
and a mascot (p. 146).
In 1978, Taco Bell was purchased by PepsiCo, and expanded its locations
worldwide. As it took on other multinational fast food competitors,
Taco Bell’s publicity and marketing strategy became increasingly more
important. During the 1970s, the restaurant offered only four products, but
in 1984 they unveiled a new approach by expanding their menu, and “convincing
mainstream America that its Mexican fare is nourishing, fresh, AllAmerican
fast food, rather than some exotic, gastrointestinal question
mark” (Paskowski 1984, 66). Lawrence Higby, then senior vice-president
of marketing stated, “We’re trying to bring together tastes and concepts that
people who are not as familiar—or trustful—of Mexican can recognize as
beef, cheese, and corn” (p. 66). In an attempt to accommodate shifting
trends, Higby explained, “Sales of hamburgers are flat, and that whole category
is mature. Mexican is the standout—and we’re changing dramatically
to capitalize on that” (p. 67). As a result, Taco Bell’s advertising focused on
presenting their products as “ . . . comfortable, familiar food that can be
shared, that this is food to be consumed just like you would a hamburger
. . . ” (p. 67). The goal of the new approach, according to Higby, was to help
people “get over their uneasiness with Mexican food” (p. 67). One restaurant
analyst explained the changes by describing the need to accommodate
customers who “historically [have] been intimidated by Mexican food,
linking it with Montezuma’s revenge” (p. 68).
Taco Bell’s campaign was successful, and the company continued to
expand. In the early 1990s, they cut costs by preparing food outside of their
restaurants, and unveiled a 59, 79, and 99-cent menu. During the first three
quarters, the number of customer transactions increased 35 percent (Lev
1990), overall sales grew 28 percent, and operating profits rose 36 percent
(Weinstein 1991). That same year, sales in the Mexican restaurant industry
increased by 10 percent, as compared with the 2 percent growth in the restaurant
industry as a whole (Dawson 1991). By pushing prices down and marketing
their products as “value menu” items, Taco Bell, together with its 3,700
restaurants, was the industry forerunner in linking cheapness to Mexican-ness.
Toward the end of the 1990s, sales started to dip, and the company
sought a fresh campaign to curb the decline in earnings. Taco Bell hired a
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 335
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
new advertising agency, and in 1998, Dinky the Chihuahua (a.k.a. Gidget)
first barked “Yo quiero Taco Bell” on nationally distributed television commercials.
Not even the advertising executives had foreseen how popular the
ads would become. By the end of 1998, sales were up 9 percent, and the
chain expected to sell 20 million plush-toy versions of the Chihuahua
(Johnson 1999). As Taco Bell vice president Peter Stack remarked, “We’re
enjoying the highest awareness levels our advertising has ever generated . . .”
(Johnson 1999, 1). Prompting more sales than campaigns featuring human
celebrities such as basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal, Dinky the
Chihuahua, as Taco Bell president Peter Waller put it, was “critical” to their
success, stating, “It happens maybe once in a lifetime that you get a nation
talking about you” (Horovitz 1998, 1).
Taco Bell did indeed experience high awareness levels; however, not all
of them were positive. Many national Latino groups expressed concern over
a Spanish-speaking dog invoking the imagery of a variety of Latino icons
such as Che Guevara (the Argentinean Marxist revolutionary) and Evita Perón
(the celebrated former first lady of Argentina). Still others, like members of
National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC) were angered by the use of anthropomorphism—when
human characteristics are assigned to animals. The employment of anthropomorphic
advertising in reference to a specific ethnic group is often considered
a base for the subsequent dehumanization of that population. Welquis
Lopez, the vice chairman of the National Hispanic Republican Assembly
stated, “Why can’t they use something else? . . . Don’t use an animal,
because then you’re treating us like we are part of an animal” (Estrada
1998, 38). Gabriel Cazares, a former Clearwater, Florida, mayor, and president
of the Tampa chapter of LULAC, called for a nationwide boycott of
Taco Bell explaining:
I think it was an unfortunate commercial. I think that the use of a dog to
depict Mexicans was very demeaning. If Taco Bell wanted to depict someone
that would reflect Mexican culture, we have many live, two-legged artists,
singers, dancers, musicians—some great people in America that could have
been selected to give a testimonial for Taco Bell [and] say, “yo quiero un
taco,” and that wouldn’t have been offensive. (http:www.latinousa.org/learning/
tacobell.html)
Santa Ana (1999) argues that the contemporary framing of American
discourse on undocumented Latino immigrants is commonly communicated
through the dominant metaphor “immigrants are animals” (p. 198).
336 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Looking specifically at print media texts pertaining to the 1994 California
referendum, Proposition 187,6
Santa Ana shows how these ideas are
reflected in the media. As animals “to be lured, pitted, or baited,” both proimmigration
and anti-immigration supporters described immigrants in this
fashion (p. 200). In his estimation, “The conceptual correspondence ‘immigrants
are animals’is racist. It belittles immigrants as it separates non-citizens
and citizens, since it assigns them a less-than-human standing” (p. 216).
When considering that everyday metaphors symbolize the “common-sense
world-view of [their] target domain,” the significance of such characterizations
highlights the potential effects and far-reaching social implications in
the establishment of conventional frames of reference (p. 192).
In light of a series of political legislation targeting the Latino commu-
nity,7
commercials starring a Spanish-accented dog pitching Mexican food,
for some, was an unlikely coincidence. As Cazares remarked, “It comes at
a time when Hispanics, especially Mexicans, suffer terribly from immigrant
bashing. It just makes me feel like that this is another putdown to
Mexicans” (Sullivan 1998, 5). However, not all Latinos or Latino groups
responded as fervently as Lopez or Cazares. In fact, Belen Robles, the
national president of LULAC, issued a press release denying reports that
they had asked Taco Bell to stop running the commercials and stated that,
as they saw it, the Chihuahua was not offensive to Latinos. In her words,
“This is a non-issue for LULAC . . . We have many more substantive things
to worry about . . . I seriously doubt they would intentionally air something
that is offensive to the Hispanic community” (Reddick 1998, 1).
From the Taco Bell boy to Dinky the Chihuahua, Taco Bell’s representation
of fast-and-easy inauthenticity organizes ethnicity through the cultivation
of contested meanings, adherence to sameness and safeness, and
alignment with dominant dialogues of the time period. Through discourses
of humor and harmlessness simultaneous messages are sent and received
disguising “a more malevolent function” (Dubin 1987, 130). These transmissions
draw on notions of familiarity that situate ethnicity through the
lens of commonality, conformity, and comfort. Consequently, through the
implementation of characters and characteristics that are easy to control,
social statuses of inequality are replicated, unintended or otherwise, in the
display of caricature and humor.
Conclusion
The contention that authenticity is a highly negotiated interaction that
represents a romanticized representation of reality is by now a scholarly
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 337
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
norm. Similarly, the notion that ethnicity is a socially constructed category
that reflects a group’s common origin and sense of unique collective solidarity,
is also a widely accepted belief. Within the culture of the Mexican
restaurant industry, the accomplishment of authenticity and ethnicity is a
social construction, one that is produced by Mexicans and MexicanAmericans
as much as it is scripted by marketing experts of large restaurant
chains. However, in spite of its socially constructed character, practices of
authenticity have real-world implications that illustrate the limits and constraints
that less powerful populations face in the marketplace—especially
when it comes to accessing the conditions that enable the production and
consumption of their identities.
Mexican restaurants are important sites where ideas about Mexican culture
are generated and maintained. While the restaurants in this study primarily
catered to an Anglo customer base, future research should consider
how authenticity is negotiated in Mexican restaurants that have a more
diverse clientele. For instance, how does authenticity operate in Mexican
restaurants in places like Chicago, Los Angeles, or San Antonio? Such a
focus would enable a more detailed discussion of the politics of consumption
in relation to cultural performance. Additionally, research that examines
how performances of authenticity and ethnicity differ across cultures
would provide a rich context for theorizing how representation operates as
a form of power. Although ethnicity is one form of representation accomplished
through authenticity, research that explores other taken-for-granted
claims as they are negotiated by individuals in the locations where they are
practiced is vital for gaining a greater understanding of the dynamics that
influence the production of culture. Analyzing these types of social relations
reveals the embeddedness of meaning-making practices in local contexts
and highlights the construction of cultural ideals that enforce
essentialist ideas about ethnicity (Lamont 2000).
Narratives of authenticity and ethnicity, as central to the commercial
character of the “ethnic” food industry, forge structural and relational hierarchies
that reproduce knowledge about particular groups of people.
Rooted in anxieties related to the expansion of modern industrial society
(Trilling 1971), and entrenched in the ongoing efforts to achieve equality
(Abarca 2004), struggles over representation reflect the enduring political
salience of identity. In the context of the oft-cited cliché, “you are what you
eat,” the consumption of different identities presents itself as a social and
political practice of representation. Practices of representation, as Lipsitz
(1994) reminds us, do not necessarily suggest relations of equal standing or
mutual reciprocity, especially when participants in these dialogues “speak
338 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
from positions of highly unequal access to power, opportunity, and life
chances” (p. 4). For Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Chicanos, whose
access to the legal and symbolic benefits of citizenship is consistently challenged,
matters of representation yield powerful political and material outcomes.
The next step, then, is to critique the dimensions of other seemingly
neutral forms of representation so as to open new possibilities, strategies,
and spaces for questioning existing social divisions and confronting continuing
inequalities.
Notes
1. All informant and restaurant names are pseudonyms. In some cases I withhold citations
to maintain confidentiality.
2. For instance, in 2000, Springfield’s population was 56 percent white, 27 percent Latino,
21 percent Black, 1.9 percent Asian, and Hartford’s population was 27.7 percent white, 40.4
percent Latino, 38.1 percent Black, and 1.6 percent Asian. In comparison, Amherst’s population
was 79.3 percent white and Northampton’s population was 90 percent white (www
.census.gov).
3. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2000), individuals who identified as Mexican or
Mexican-American comprised less than 1 percent of the inhabitants in each of these communities.
The specific percentages of people who identified themselves as Mexican or MexicanAmerican
include: Amherst, 0.5 percent; Northampton, 0.4 percent; Springfield, 0.4 percent;
and Hartford, 0.8 percent (www.census.gov).
4. El Torito Inc. is an international Mexican restaurant chain that operates in the western
and mid-western United States, Turkey, Japan, and the Middle East.
5. Decker characterizes the “American market” as consumers whose backgrounds are
“mainstream Northern and Western European” (2003, 113).
6. Proposition 187 sought to restrict social services, health care, and education to undocumented
immigrants.
7. In particular, California initiatives, Proposition 187 (1994), Proposition 209 (1995), and
Proposition 227 (1999).
References
Abarca, M. 2004. Authentic or not, it’s original. Food and Foodways 12 (1): 1-25.
Baldwin, D. L. 1999. Taco titan: the Glen Bell story. Arlington: Summit.
Bauman, R., and C. L. Briggs. 1990. Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language
and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:59-88.
Bell, David, and Gill Valentine. 1997. We are where we eat. London: Routledge.
Boorstin, D. 1961. The image: a guide to pseudo-events in America. New York: Vintage.
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Dávila, A. 2001. Latinos Inc.: the marketing and making of a people. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 339
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Dawson, B. M. 1991. Poco prices and mucho menu choices drive traffic jump. Restaurants
and Institutions 24 (July): 111.
Decker, K. J. 2003. Expanding culinary horizons with dried mixes. Food Product Design
(June): 106-130.
Dubin, S. 1987. Symbolic slavery: Black representations in popular culture. Social Problems
34 (2): 122-38.
Estrada, R. 1998. TV ads aren’t as harmless as viewers think. Rocky Mountain News, April 27.
Ferraro, S. 2002. Comida sin par. Consumption of Mexican food in Los Angeles: “foodscapes”
in a transnational consumer society. In Food nations: selling taste in consumer
societies, ed. W. Belasco and P. Scranton, 194-219. New York and London: Routledge.
Fine, G. A. 1996. Kitchens: a macro-interactionist approach to organizational life and culture.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Finkelstein, J. 1989. Dining out: a sociology of modern manners. Cambridge: Polity.
Gabaccia, D. 1998. We are what we eat: ethnic food and the making of Americans. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Gans, H. 1979. Symbolic ethnicity: the future of ethnic groups and cultures in America. Ethnic
and Racial Studies 2 (1): 1-20.
García-Canclini, N. 2001. Consumers and citizens, trans. G. Yudice. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
Goffman, E. 1959. Presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
Goldman, A. 1992. “I yam what I yam”: cooking, culture, and colonialism. In De/Colonizing
the subject: the politics of gender in women’s autobiography, ed. S. Smith and J. Watson,
169-95. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Gray, H. 2004. Introduction. In Watching race: television and the struggle for blackness, xiiixxv.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Grazian, D. 2003. Blue Chicago: the search for authenticity in urban blues clubs. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
———. 2004. The production of popular music as a confidence game: the case of the Chicago
blues. Qualitative Sociology 27 (2): 137-58.
Halter, M. 2000. Shopping for identity: the marketing of ethnicity. New York: Schocken.
Handler, R. 1986. Authenticity. Anthropology today 2 (1): 6-9.
hooks, b. 1992. Eating the other: desire and resistance. In Black looks: race and representation,
21-39. Boston: South End.
Horovitz, B. 1998. Taco Bell finds a dog’s life quite fetching: a Chihuahua leaves a mark on
society and takes a bite out of the fast-food competition. USA Today, October 22.
Johnson, G. 1999. Grooming an icon for the long haul: Taco Bell knows it has a gold mine in
a tiny dog—the key is making it last. Los Angeles Times, February 18.
Kates, S. and R. Belk. 2001. The meaning of lesbian and gay pride day: resistance through
consumption and resistance to consumption. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 30
(4): 392-429.
Kennedy, D. 1972. The cuisines of Mexico. New York: Harper & Row.
Lamont, M. 2000. The future of cultural sociology: broadening our agenda. Contemporary
Sociology 29 (4): 602-7.
Latino USA. Taco Bell and Latino stereotypes. Cited January 15, 2005. Available from
http://www.latinousa.org/learning/tacobell.html.
Lev, M. 1990. Taco Bell finds price of success. The New York Times, December 17.
Lipsitz, G. 1994. Dangerous crossroads: popular music, postmodernism and the poetics of
place. New York: Verso.
340 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Lu, S., and G. A. Fine. 1995. The presentation of ethnic authenticity: Chinese food as a social
accomplishment. Sociological Quarterly 36 (3): 535-53.
MacCannell, D. 1973. Staged authenticity: arrangements of social space in tourist settings.
American Journal of Sociology 79 (3): 389-603.
McRobbie, A. 1999. In the culture society: art, fashion and popular music. London: Routledge.
Nenga, S. K. 2003. Social class and structures of feeling in women’s childhood memories of
clothing, food, and leisure. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 32 (2): 167-99.
Ohnuki-Tierney, E. 1993. Rice as self: Japanese identities through time. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Paskowski, M. 1984. Taco Bell targets mainstream America. Marketing and Media Decisions
19 (June): 66.
Peterson, R. 1997. Creating country music: fabricating authenticity. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Promar International. 1998. Riding the U.S. ethnic food tide: strategies for food manufacturers
into the new millennium. The Strategic Consultant Series. Alexandria,VA: Promar
International Publication.
Reddick, T. 1998. Hispanic league’s national leader says “si” to Taco Bell’s Dinky. The Tampa
Tribune, March 30.
Santa Ana, O. 1999. Like an animal I was treated: anti-immigrant metaphor in U.S. public discourse.
Discourse and Society 10 (2): 191-224.
Spang, R. 2000. The invention of the restaurant: Paris and modern gastronomic culture.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Sullivan, J. 1998. Hispanic leaders have beef supreme with Taco Bell. Times-Picayune, March 9.
Trilling, L. 1971. Sincerity and authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Tuchman G., and H. Levine. 1992. New York Jews and Chinese food: the social construction
of an ethnic pattern. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22 (3): 382-407.
United States Census Bureau. 2000. Population and household economic topics. Available
from http://www.census.gov/population/www/index.html.
Walsh, R. 2004. The Tex-Mex cookbook: a history in recipes and photos. New York: Bantam
Dell.
Waters, M. 1990. Ethnic options: choosing identities in America. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Weinstein, J. 1991. Truth and consequences of fast-food value menus. Restaurants and
Institutions 6 (February): 13.
Marie Sarita Gaytán is a PhD candidate in the department of sociology at the University of
California, Santa Cruz. Her research interests include consumption, culture, globalization, and
identity.
Gaytán / From Sombreros to Sincronizadas 341
by Mome Vörös on March 18, 2016jce.sagepub.comDownloaded from