On September 23, 2011, I turned in a final essay for History 557, The History of Popular Culture. I was finishing my last year of graduate school and was required to write a minimum twenty page essay for my final exam grade. I stumbled upon it the other day and had to giggle a little. I must have had tacos on the brain because I managed to weave tacos into my essay. I only received a B- in the class and I'm quite certain it was this paper that caused such a low score. The excerpts may sound a little silly if taken out of context. First, I most certainly wrote the entire essay in about two days, so you can take the quality of writing for what it is. Second, this class, and my paper, covered a wide range of topics. It discussed pop culture from approximately 1900-2000 via a myriad of American social experiences. We discussed shopping malls, amusement parks, hospitals, cemeteries, airports, restaurants and food. My paper was supposed to be about cultural experiences. Apparently, I chose the melding of the Anglo and Mexican cultures here in Texas. One of the aspects I covered was how the food scene had been changed even during my lifetime by the melding of cultures. And for your comic pleasure, here are some excerpts from "The Cultural Impact of Mexican Immigration on Tarrant County, Texas", by the Taco Saint.
...This melding of American and Mexican culture has produced a distinctly new blended culture. This melting pot has transformed our eating establishments, food choices, and expectations of what comprises comfort food. The Mexican culture has touched the fine arts, rites of passage, and holiday celebrations. Hospitals, universities, police departments and our legal system have all had to bend and change to accommodate the changing ethno graphics. The rising Mexican population has affected our shopping and amusement park experiences. It has even affected the way we communicate.
As a very young girl of four or five, I remember having my first two friends, two Mexican girls by the name of Sonia and Becky. The second thing I remember is the wonderful food their mother would bring to my grandmother’s house in the older part of town. It was always a special treat to have fresh made tamales and the only place you could get them was from an acquaintance who was Mexican. As a child, I had never witnessed a white person make them, and they seemed to contain ingredients we certainly didn’t keep around our kitchen.
As I grew into a teenager, my friends and I often visited the local Taco Bell. The eighties seemed to be filled with Americanized versions of Mexican cuisine. Tacos with ground beef and cheddar cheese were considered acceptable Mexican food to Anglos. There were a few sit down "Mexican" restaurants that catered to Anglos, but they left something to be desired from their Americanized food and limited menu choices. These Caucasian owned businesses seemed to be grasping to find a happy combination of American and Mexican foods.
In the nineties, the food push carts emerged. It was a low cost way to sell food. My college neighborhood was frequented by a Mexican man who would push a cart with hot tamales and sell them cheaply to the students. Another man would come by with the ice cream cart. They would ring a bell as they walked by to get potential customers attention. Businesses began to get visits from Mexican women selling tamales at lunch time. I was once approached in a Walgreens parking lot by a nice Mexican woman selling tamales out of her trunk. The authentic Mexican food was making its way out of the ethnic enclaves and into mainstream Anglo America. At the same time, small mom and pop owned Hispanic restaurants began opening in the Mexican part of town. Hurley explains that people tended to eat near their home, work, or school. Most early eateries served ethnic favorites catering to the particular neighborhood they were located near. Blue collar Anglo men were introduced to these establishments through their ever increasing Mexican co workers. College students and white collar office workers began seeking them out. They became “a place where culture intersected, clashed, and sometimes fused…Historically, they were transitional institutions, a temporal link…”
Today, there are authentic Mexican restaurants everywhere you turn. Some fancy, some with just a walk up window, and others that are mobile. There are eleven places I can purchase a taco within a half mile from my house. Mexican markets have proliferated. The closest grocery store to my house is the Fiesta Mart that specializes in authentic Mexican ingredients and products. Ground beef and cheddar cheese are no longer acceptable to most as good Mexican food. Today, Anglos expect barbacoa tacos with queso fresco topped with fresh cilantro and lime and a multitude of other choices that were not available to the average Anglo thirty five years ago. The taco is rapidly outpacing the hamburger and pizza as the favorite Anglo Texan food choice. “What people eat has always been determined by a complex interplay of social, economic, and technological forces.”...
...Most recently, a food truck park has opened in a popular part of town, a trend taken directly from the Mexican population. This area once dominated by all Latinos has been gaining popularity with Anglos who want to start up restaurants but have a small budget. In a newspaper interview about the new food park, food truck owner Ramiro Ramirez said, “Traditionally, taco trucks targeted working class Hispanics. But like many trends, the food trucks worked their way from the bottom up, and now they’ve been embraced by everyone. You’d be surprised at the variety of people that come by.”
This melding of two different cultures has combined to form a third, new and different Anglo Mexican culture that is prevailing today. We just like to call it “Tex Mex”.
Bilbliography:
Backes, Nancy. "Reading the Shopping Mall City." Journal of Popular Culture 1-17.
Bottum, Joseph. "Death and Politics." First Things (Research Library), Jun/Jul 2007: 17-29.
Griffey, Eric. "Drive Away Hunger:Food on the Move,from Street Tacos to Upscale Hotdogs,has revved up Fort Worth's Dining Scene." Fort Worth Star Telegram, September 1, 2011.
Harvey, Thomas. "Sacred Spaces, Common Places:The Cemetary in the Contemporary American City." Geographical Review (Research Library), April 2006: 295-312.
Hurley, Andrew. "From Hash House to Family Restaurant:The Transformation of the Diner and Post World War II Consumer Culture." The Journal of American History (Research Library), March 1997: 1282-1307.
Kerr, Clark. "Shock Wave II." In The Future of the City of Intellect:The Changing American University, by Steve Brint, 1-19. Stanford University Press, 2002.
Mintz, Lawrence. "Simulated Tourism at Busch Gardens:The Old Country and Disney World's Showcase, Epcot Center." Journal of Popular Culture (Research Library), Winter 1998: 47-58.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation:The Dark Side of the All American Meal. Boston: Houghton mifflin, 2001.
Texas Almanac 2010-2011. Denton: Texas State Historical Association, 2010.
Texas Almanac and State Industrial Guide 1974-1975. A.H. Belo Corporation, 1973.
