Symbolic Interaction
Volume 39, Issue 1, 2016, Pages 66-85

Comiendo bien: The production of latinidad through the performance of healthy eating among latino immigrant families in San Francisco (Article)

Martínez A.D.*
  • a School of Transborder Studies, Arizona State University, 1120 South Cady Mall, B160J, Box 876303, Tempe, AZ 85287-6303, United States

Abstract

Utilizing a bricolage of interactionist cultural studies, ethnic foodways, and situational analysis this paper examines how Latino immigrants, representing six countries and multiple preimmigration class positions, come to perform Latinidad through the lay health practice of comiendo bien (eating well). Comiendo bien was examined through participant observation of 15 families living in San Francisco and 27 key informant interviews. Comiendo bien is a performance that exists through the convergence of multiple identity positions. Latina/o immigrants not only enact the Latinidad in the United States through artistic expression or political strategizing, but also by sharing an idealized practice of healthy eating. © 2016 Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved.

Author Keywords

foodways Latinas/os Ethnicity race identity formation performance

Index Keywords

[No Keywords available]

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84957433956&doi=10.1002%2fsymb.218&partnerID=40&md5=a82a22460081f4951c8ad708b32f9ee0

DOI: 10.1002/symb.218
ISSN: 01956086
Original Language: English