Food for Thought: Assimilation
by Almira Astudillo Gilles
A couple of weeks ago during Kapihan sa Rizal Center, I asked the seniors who were gathered there what the Rizal Center meant to them. The predominant answer was that it’s a “home away from home,” a place for camaraderie with fellow Filipinos. While this answer is not surprising, it lends credence to an observation that I’ve been nurturing for a while: the community is stronger where there is a physical place where they can gather. Research actually bears this out.
Many studies show that a dedicated space promotes cultural continuity, social connection, and identity formation. Placemaking provides an opportunity for exercising belonging and attachment. However, identity formation is not as simple as it sounds. For diaspora members, integration is necessary, but the crucial question is how to assimilate. What will constitute their new identity? What will their adopted culture allow in the name of patriotism or, worse, nationalism?
I’ve been visiting many restaurants lately, many of them Filipino, so food has been on my mind these past weeks. Lucky for me, assimilation has been modeled on two food concepts: the melting pot and salad bowl. Cuisine is a perspective that Filipinos especially can relate to.
Credit: https://ar.inspiredpencil.com/pictures-2023/salad-bowl-theory
The melting pot model of cultural integration is based on the idea that immigrant identity needs to be modified, if not altered beyond recognition, for fuller participation in American social, political, and civic life.
The salad bowl model is based on the concept of multiculturalism, where different ethnicities coexist, and the dish’s success depends on how well the ingredients taste in combination with each other.
The discussion on which perspective provides a truer picture of the U.S. as a nation is consequential for matters of national policy. As the debate rages on, the immigrant profile of the U.S. is itself evolving. The latest survey shows that immigrants are now younger, speak better English upon setting foot in the country, and are more highly educated.
What of the Rizal Center?
What of the Rizal Center, then, as a place for cultural perpetuation and identity formation? Is it an entity that helps Filipinos dissolve into mainstream culture (i.e., nonimmigrant, nonrefugee) or does it allow Filipino culture to retain its traditions in mutual coexistence?
One thing is for sure, it serves as a safe harbor where Filipinos can talk in their native tongue (all the seniors led off introductions by identifying their provinces) and share Philippine experiences (and jokes) that only they can understand. It is a place where they can try and make sense of the confusion of being in a salad bowl, or distance themselves from the heat of the melting pot.
Here, they are iconic adobo, with the familiar tang of vinegar, the saltiness of soy sauce, the aroma of garlic. And while we all know that there are as many recipes for adobo as there are cooks—Kasama restaurant has a version with mushrooms—we compare differences from a place of pride and unity.
One more thing about placemaking. Rizal Center, or any venue for the community to gather, is metaphysically a relationship between people and place. And as the immigrant community evolves, so must the Rizal Center continue to welcome later generations by adapting to their needs, making it a place for them too that is a “home away from home.”
Almira Astudillo Gilles describes her heart’s work as conservation in two areas: indigenous cultural heritage and natural resources. Her cultural heritage work includes a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for Art and Anthropology Project: Portrait of the Object as Filipino, an international artist exchange. She was the founder of 10,000 Kwentos (“Stories”) at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a model of direct community engagement with the museum’s Philippine ethnographic collection.
Leave a Reply