Multicultural commodification in New York City’s culinary field: resistance among Mexican Indigenous chefs

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article is situated in the intersections of Indigenous, migration, and food studies. The article is guided by the questions: How have New York City (NYC) media used Mexican Indigeneity to promote multicultural commodification? How do self-ascribed Mexican Indigenous chefs used their Indigeneity as a form of resistance? To answer these questions, I undertook participant observation in NYC, conducted semi-structured interviews, and analyzed food reviews from NYC media. In this piece I claim that NYC media has branded the city as multicultural. Nevertheless, the simplified narratives of racialized culinary cultures have mainly benefitted consumers and NYC branding. The trajectories of the two Mexican Indigenous chefs studied here show the ways in which these chefs challenged multicultural commodification.