Appraising tacos: Unraveling value-imbuing processes and narratives of authenticity

Abstract: 

In recent years, simultaneous to a continued American debate regarding illegal Latino immigrants, taco stands and Mexican restaurants have gained popularity in urban areas including Chicago. In this project I take a directed look at the discourses that underlie Mexican-American street food in order to better understand processes of authenticity and meaning. The theoretical aim of this project is to understand how food is commodified and given value through performances of authenticity. I examine literature on this topic including work on the social value of commodities, semiotic analysis of commodities, linguistic materiality, and placemaking and consumption. The paper then briefly examines the implications of the process of commodifying food and authenticity, considering literature that discusses the capacity for food as a medium for agency and resistance as well as literature that confronts the appropriation of foodways and traditions as a form of domination. This analysis is then applied to my own independent fieldwork at a Cal-Mex and Oaxacan inspired taco restaurant (called Supernova in this paper) located in a hip, gentrified neighborhood in Chicago. In doing so I employ frameworks and notions analyzed above. I then turn to an exploration of the narrative of authenticity employed by producers at Supernova. Moreover, I seek to understand the repercussions of these processes of commodification and appropriation for those whose authenticity and food traditions are being performed and commodified (namely, Mexican- Americans and Mexican immigrants). The paper concludes that the narrative of authenticity employed by producers at Supernova works to index both a timeless rural Oaxaca and a sanitized southern America that includes the most accessible and commodifiable aspects of this regional experience (tacos, music, drink) while erasing the history and complexities of each of these aspects. Ultimately, in erasing these histories, producers at Supernova act to essentially re-silence Mexicans in Chicago.