Flavors of Empire

Abstract

Flavors of Empire examines the rise of Thai food and the way it shaped the racial and ethnic contours of Thai American identity and community. Mark Padoongpatt makes use of original archival research and rich oral histories to explore the factors that made foodways central to the Thai American experience. Starting with the U.S. Cold War intervention in Thailand, he traces how the informal U.S. empire allowed Americans to discover Thai food and introduce it to adventurous eaters back home. When Thais arrived in Los Angeles, they reinvented and repackaged Thai cuisine in various ways to meet its rising popularity in urban and suburban spaces. America's fascination with Thai cuisine resulted in Thais having to remake themselves over the second half of the twentieth century in relation to the perceived exoticness and sensuousness of Thai food. Padoongpatt argues that this remaking produced "Thai Americans"—not a cultural identity rooted in ethnic difference but a social and political relationship defined by U.S. empire, liberal multiculturalism, and racial geography of Los Angeles. He also contends that while food brought Thais together, provided a sense of pride and visibility, and allowed Thai Americans to lay claims to their place in the city, it also led to divisions within the community and created barriers to collective mobilization for social justice. Padoongpatt deftly handles the history, politics, and tastes of Thai food, all while demonstrating the way racial projects emerge in seemingly mundane and unexpected places in an era of multiculturalism.