Aarohi Narain Nicole Cardoza Aarohi Narain Nicole Cardoza

Embrace the diversity of Indian food.

As the pandemic surges, diners and celebrities have drummed up support for BIPOC and immigrant restaurateurs. However, to revolutionize the industry we need more than one-off campaigns. Alongside policy to secure humane working conditions for workers, we need to reexamine our approach to “ethnic food”.

TAKE ACTION

  • Reflect: What are your expectations regarding Indian food and Indian restaurants?

  • Support restaurants that challenge your perceptions of the limits of Indian cuisine.

  • Advocate for the people who labor to put food on your plate, including but not limited to farmers, service workers, and BIPOC and immigrant restaurateurs.

GET EDUCATED

By Aarohi Narain (she/her)

As the pandemic surges, diners and celebrities have drummed up support for BIPOC and immigrant restaurateurs. However, to revolutionize the industry we need more than one-off campaigns. Alongside policy to secure humane working conditions for workers, we need to reexamine our approach to “ethnic food”. 

As we wrote in a previous newsletter, it’s crucial to ask: which restaurants do we deem worthy of our dollars and why? And since seeking “authenticity” often disadvantages restaurateurs from immigrant backgrounds, what’s at stake when we appreciate the complex journey of the food on our plate?

Arriving in the United States as a privileged international student, I realized that I carried my own warped ideas about “authenticity” in the context of Indian food. Naive and self-righteous, the fare I encountered at Midwestern Indian restaurants struck me as simulacra– diluted, distorted imitations that bore little resemblance to the flavors and textures of my upbringing in New Delhi. But in coming to this conclusion, I had ignored the larger legacies of which I am a part. 

Through a combination of the historical forces of Partition and the contemporary pressures on many immigrants to assimilate, diverse South Asians created the food most diners readily associate with Indian cuisine. 

As Krishnendu Ray, Professor of Food Studies, writes in The Ethnic Restaurateur, more than half of nominally Indian restaurants just in New York City are operated by people from Bangladesh. Similarly, it has been estimated that 85-90 percent of Indian restaurants in Britain are run by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese and more (South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies). Zooming in further, around 8 out of 10 curry house chefs in Britain hail specifically from the northeastern Bangladeshi region of Sylhet (The Guardian). 

Sylhet is an unmatched, albeit underexplored, emblem of the Indian subcontinent’s violent and precarious intimacies. It’s also crucial to the story of how Indian food circulates. 

A quick turn to history: in 1947 the Partition of India, the largest ever mass migration, ended almost two centuries of British rule. Britain not only extracted $45 trillion from India (Al Jazeera), but also knowingly fomented communal tensions through deploying the policy of divide and rule during its yoke. Eventually, the demand emerged for two separate nations to be carved out along religious lines: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority secular India (Vox). 

A British lawyer who had never been to India drew the new borders. Sylhet, a district that was Bengali-speaking and skewed Muslim in the otherwise Hindu-majority province of Assam, became the subject of a referendum (BBC). Residents opted to join East Pakistan (Scroll). Then following Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, Sylhet joined independent Bangladesh. 

It was enterprising migrants primarily from Sylhet who disrupted the otherwise bland culinary order of Britain as its colonies collapsed. At curry houses, they invented the genre of nominally Indian cooking– spice-scaled post-pub curries to enliven the timid British palate– that continues to shape dominant perceptions of Indian food across the globe. Chicken tikka masala, the orange-hued poster child of Indian food once praised as a “true British national dish”, likely sprung from these kitchens (The Guardian). 

Early waves of Indian restaurants in the United States espoused the curry house logic: menus typically featured the likes of chicken tikka masala and Anglicized stews, and later incorporated dishes drawn from Mughlai cooking like braises, kebabs, and grilled breads (The Juggernaut). This blended style became so central to the American awareness of Indian food that when many Bangladeshi immigrants arrived in the 1970s, they opened nominally Indian restaurants to cater to consumer interest. Instead of presenting food that reflected their heritage, they served versions of Indian food they assumed were already familiar and more approachable to most diners (The New York Times). 

It’s only in the past decade or so that a small crop of restaurants has begun resisting the generalizing label of “Indian”. And because within India culinary styles are as deeply regional as they are molded by caste and class, chefs in the diaspora are creating more regionally specific offerings– expansive buffets unfurling as gastronomic maps of an imagined South Asia are giving way to Gujarati home cooking, Bengali street food, and Malabari coastal cuisine alike (NBC). 

Still, most mainstream restaurants stick to the old formula: about 90% of Indian restaurants in New York City alone have not meaningfully moved away from it (The Juggernaut). Even as the diasporas mature, the “authentic” that Yelp reviewers demand remains static. Meanwhile, the people behind the food– with their interconnected yet distinct identities– swing wildly between invisibility and hypervisibility, becoming targets of hate crimes and racialized surveillance. 

Perhaps, fifty years from now, there will be a course correction for Anglicized and Americanized iterations of Indian food– as we are seeing now for American Chinese food– that will view the culinary improvisations of those early Indian restaurants with more empathy. Instead of relying on fragile nation-states as the units of our analysis, perhaps convergence will become the norm when it comes to understanding what shapes cuisine. 

Imagine a cartography of karak chai, spread out across migrant communities in the Gulf. A ghost story centered on dhal puri– split pea flatbread with chutneys sold as street food in the Caribbean– a dish first created by Bhojpuri-speaking indentured laborers that have somehow vanished from where it arose. A tender map tracing the journey between what restaurateurs might choose to savor at home– in moments of celebration– and what they serve to survive. 


In the meantime, quitting chicken tikka masala is not the solution. It’s seeing how, as bell hooks writes, “ethnicity” is treated as spice: seasoning that livens up the dull dish of mainstream white culture under capitalism. It’s supporting immigrant restaurateurs even when they present something unfamiliar or a particular food you cherish but prepared differently from what you’re used to. It’s appreciating the complex journeys– the history, politics, and personal investments– of what’s on your plate.

Key Takeaways

  • The food that many diners reflexively associate with Indian cuisine was actually created by diverse South Asians.

  • A vast number of Indian restaurants in the United States and beyond are run by migrants who trace their ancestry to Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and others. 

  • Partition spurred the largest forced migration in human history– an estimated 20 million Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims were displaced (UNHCR).

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

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Aarohi Narain Nicole Cardoza Aarohi Narain Nicole Cardoza

Explore the origins of cuisine.

As the pandemic surges, diners and celebrities have drummed up support for BIPOC and immigrant restaurateurs. However, to revolutionize the industry we need more than one-off campaigns. Alongside policy to secure humane working conditions for workers, we need to reexamine our approach to “ethnic food”.

Happy Wednesday and welcome back! Sometimes, it's difficult to realize how much we've lost through colonialism until we recognize how much we've accepted as the "norm". I always stumble into that realization through food, which is why I'm grateful that Aarohi joins us today to share more about the history of Indian cuisine.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on our website or Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

  • Currently, India is experiencing unprecedented levels of COVID-19. Here is a list of individuals and organizations that need support: bit.ly/MutualAidIndia

  • Reflect: What are your expectations regarding Indian food and Indian restaurants?

  • Support restaurants that challenge your perceptions of the limits of Indian cuisine.

  • Advocate for the people who labor to put food on your plate, including but not limited to farmers, service workers, and BIPOC and immigrant restaurateurs.

GET EDUCATED

By Aarohi Narain (she/her)

As the pandemic surges, diners and celebrities have drummed up support for BIPOC and immigrant restaurateurs. However, to revolutionize the industry we need more than one-off campaigns. Alongside policy to secure humane working conditions for workers, we need to reexamine our approach to “ethnic food”. 

As we wrote in a previous newsletter, it’s crucial to ask: which restaurants do we deem worthy of our dollars and why? And since seeking “authenticity” often disadvantages restaurateurs from immigrant backgrounds, what’s at stake when we appreciate the complex journey of the food on our plate?

Arriving in the United States as a privileged international student, I realized that I carried my own warped ideas about “authenticity” in the context of Indian food. Naive and self-righteous, the fare I encountered at Midwestern Indian restaurants struck me as simulacra– diluted, distorted imitations that bore little resemblance to the flavors and textures of my upbringing in New Delhi. But in coming to this conclusion, I had ignored the larger legacies of which I am a part. 

Through a combination of the historical forces of Partition and the contemporary pressures on many immigrants to assimilate, diverse South Asians created the food most diners readily associate with Indian cuisine. 

As Krishnendu Ray, Professor of Food Studies, writes in The Ethnic Restaurateur, more than half of nominally Indian restaurants just in New York City are operated by people from Bangladesh. Similarly, it has been estimated that 85-90 percent of Indian restaurants in Britain are run by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese and more (South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies). Zooming in further, around 8 out of 10 curry house chefs in Britain hail specifically from the northeastern Bangladeshi region of Sylhet (The Guardian). 

Sylhet is an unmatched, albeit underexplored, emblem of the Indian subcontinent’s violent and precarious intimacies. It’s also crucial to the story of how Indian food circulates. 

A quick turn to history: in 1947 the Partition of India, the largest ever mass migration, ended almost two centuries of British rule. Britain not only extracted $45 trillion from India (Al Jazeera), but also knowingly fomented communal tensions through deploying the policy of divide and rule during its yoke. Eventually, the demand emerged for two separate nations to be carved out along religious lines: Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority secular India (Vox). 

A British lawyer who had never been to India drew the new borders. Sylhet, a district that was Bengali-speaking and skewed Muslim in the otherwise Hindu-majority province of Assam, became the subject of a referendum (BBC). Residents opted to join East Pakistan (Scroll). Then following Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, Sylhet joined independent Bangladesh. 

It was enterprising migrants primarily from Sylhet who disrupted the otherwise bland culinary order of Britain as its colonies collapsed. At curry houses, they invented the genre of nominally Indian cooking– spice-scaled post-pub curries to enliven the timid British palate– that continues to shape dominant perceptions of Indian food across the globe. Chicken tikka masala, the orange-hued poster child of Indian food once praised as a “true British national dish”, likely sprung from these kitchens (The Guardian). 

Early waves of Indian restaurants in the United States espoused the curry house logic: menus typically featured the likes of chicken tikka masala and Anglicized stews, and later incorporated dishes drawn from Mughlai cooking like braises, kebabs, and grilled breads (The Juggernaut). This blended style became so central to the American awareness of Indian food that when many Bangladeshi immigrants arrived in the 1970s, they opened nominally Indian restaurants to cater to consumer interest. Instead of presenting food that reflected their heritage, they served versions of Indian food they assumed were already familiar and more approachable to most diners (The New York Times). 

It’s only in the past decade or so that a small crop of restaurants has begun resisting the generalizing label of “Indian”. And because within India culinary styles are as deeply regional as they are molded by caste and class, chefs in the diaspora are creating more regionally specific offerings– expansive buffets unfurling as gastronomic maps of an imagined South Asia are giving way to Gujarati home cooking, Bengali street food, and Malabari coastal cuisine alike (NBC). 

Still, most mainstream restaurants stick to the old formula: about 90% of Indian restaurants in New York City alone have not meaningfully moved away from it (The Juggernaut). Even as the diasporas mature, the “authentic” that Yelp reviewers demand remains static. Meanwhile, the people behind the food– with their interconnected yet distinct identities– swing wildly between invisibility and hypervisibility, becoming targets of hate crimes and racialized surveillance. 

Perhaps, fifty years from now, there will be a course correction for Anglicized and Americanized iterations of Indian food– as we are seeing now for American Chinese food– that will view the culinary improvisations of those early Indian restaurants with more empathy. Instead of relying on fragile nation-states as the units of our analysis, perhaps convergence will become the norm when it comes to understanding what shapes cuisine. 

Imagine a cartography of karak chai, spread out across migrant communities in the Gulf. A ghost story centered on dhal puri– split pea flatbread with chutneys sold as street food in the Caribbean– a dish first created by Bhojpuri-speaking indentured laborers that have somehow vanished from where it arose. A tender map tracing the journey between what restaurateurs might choose to savor at home– in moments of celebration– and what they serve to survive. 


In the meantime, quitting chicken tikka masala is not the solution. It’s seeing how, as bell hooks writes, “ethnicity” is treated as spice: seasoning that livens up the dull dish of mainstream white culture under capitalism. It’s supporting immigrant restaurateurs even when they present something unfamiliar or a particular food you cherish but prepared differently from what you’re used to. It’s appreciating the complex journeys– the history, politics, and personal investments– of what’s on your plate.

Key Takeaways

  • The food that many diners reflexively associate with Indian cuisine was actually created by diverse South Asians.

  • A vast number of Indian restaurants in the United States and beyond are run by migrants who trace their ancestry to Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and others. 

  • Partition spurred the largest forced migration in human history– an estimated 20 million Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims were displaced (UNHCR).

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Read More
Kashea McCowan Nicole Cardoza Kashea McCowan Nicole Cardoza

Support the Indian farmers’ protest.

In November 2020, tens of thousands of farmers and their families took to the streets and blocked highways across India to invoke a national strike. The news about the passing of three new agricultural laws hit the fan, and just as fast as rumors travel, farmers of more than 250 million people from the northern states crowded the capital city. They joined together in a protest to fight against the Indian government and their ideas for the future of farming in India.

Happy Sunday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! We touched on the importance of labor unions in last week's newsletter on BAmazon. I thought today's article on the legacy of César Chávez, written by Charlie, adds timely context for that conversation. I hope you enjoy learning more!

Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

Ps – be sure to sign up for 28 Days of Black History.

TAKE ACTION

  • Learn more about the recent laws enacted last September.

  • Follow reporting from journalists and leaders like Sandeep Singh, Asis Kaur, and Sikhexpo for updates.

  • Raise awareness on social media and in real life using resources in this newsletter – and by following hashtags such as #StandWithFarmers and #FarmersProtest.

GET EDUCATED

By Kashea McCowan (she/her)

In November 2020, tens of thousands of farmers and their families took to the streets and blocked highways across India to invoke a national strike. The news about the passing of three new agricultural laws hit the fan, and just as fast as rumors travel, farmers of more than 250 million people from the northern states crowded the capital city. They joined together in a protest to fight against the Indian government and their ideas for the future of farming in India. 


Unlike most farming communities in the United States who thrive off of large agribusiness corporations and massive farms, India is the complete opposite and works on a much smaller scale. The vast majority of India’s farmers own fewer than three acres of land. Though there are many small farms in India, many of them are struggling to make ends meet. However, that fact doesn’t take away from the huge impact those farmers have on the livelihoods of those around them. 
 

The agricultural sector in India makes up nearly fifteen percent of the country’s $2.9 trillion economy and employs around half of its 1.3 billion people—approximately more than 600 million workers—which is almost twice the entire population of the United States (CNN). This is possible because, for decades, they have sold their produce in their home state’s government-sanctioned markets that guarantee minimum prices on several key commodities. This all changed in September 2020 when Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, passed the new farming laws that will change the way the agricultural industry does business. These modifications will change the way crops are to be produced, stored, and sold. The laws include The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act (India Today).
 

Some farmers such as Sukhdev Singh feel like these measures only will benefit large corporations thus opening the door for private players to play a much bigger role. The result will lead to the loss of decades-old concessions, and most of the farmers will be left to fend for themselves, furthermore, pushing them into poverty at the mercy of the free market (BBC News). 
 

“These laws will have an affect on anyone who eats,” Singh says. “They will buy from us for very low prices and we will lose our livelihoods” (Al Jazeera).
 

With boiling fear, farmers swarmed into the heart of the capital of New Delhi. Standing their ground, millions of agricultural workers prepared for a month on end protest against the government and their antics. Beginning as a non-violent protest, India’s farmers joined together making their opposition known by blocking the roads that lead up to the capital. Just a couple of weeks ago, the heat escalated and turned violent when protestors confronted police officers and began charging a procession of tractors onto the streets. They were met with tear gas, massive concrete barriers, and the government cut off all access to the internet, electricity, and water supplies (CBSN). More than 120 people were arrested, and farm union leaders were charged with sedition and rioting.


Today, it is evident that the farmers are determined to dismantle these newly imposed agricultural laws. For however long it takes, millions of farmers and their families have decided to leave the comforts of their homes and live on the streets (PBS News Hour). They have even erected thousands of iron nails on some of the roads to keep the police from invading. These farmers are dedicated to making prime minister Modi and his government uncomfortable to the point that he has a change of heart. Modi states in an interview that he will not change his mind about the new laws but will delay them for the next eighteen months.
 

To further push the protest along, protestors have found ways to make their stay at the capital a part of their daily lives. Medical booths are being set up to tend to the sick, and tons of water-filled tanks brought in on tractors are provided to supply people with water for bathing, cooking, and cleaning. The old and young are cooking in community kitchens and serving meals, and even a makeshift mall, a roadside market, with people selling items like coats and jackets is available (CNN). 


The Indian government is determined to force farmers back to their lands with closed mouths, but this revolt—as it were—shows how prime minister Modi and his crew are worried about just how far these protests will go. But these farmers aren’t giving up their demands; some are prepared to wait it out for years, if need be. 


Being in the United States, you may feel that there is little you can do, but standing with those adamant supporters and howling as loudly as you can, along with those farmers, will help get the attention of those higher-ups. Stand against those big businesses and corporations looking to profit from the small man they see as dispensable. And, like the farmers, stand firm and be unmovable until those unfair agricultural laws are repealed.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Farmers are protesting against the newly imposed agricultural laws that are set up to benefit corporations and private players.

  • The agricultural sector in India makes up nearly fifteen percent of the country’s $2.9 trillion economy and employs around half of its 1.3 billion people, approximately 600 million workers.

  • The laws affect the way crops are produced, stored, and sold.

  • To further push the protest along, protestors have found ways to make their stay at the capital a part of their daily lives while putting a foot down on their demands.

RELATED ISSUES

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Read More