Dissertation Research: Cuisine as an Agent of Acculturation: Mexican American Cultural and Culinary Incorporation and Acceptance

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University of Georgia doctoral student Paul Scanlon, under the supervision of Dr. Brent Berlin, will undertake research on how food and culture interact as migrant groups are incorporated into host societies. The focus of his resarch will be Mexican cuisine in the United States. The researcher will ask whether and how Mexican dietary practices play a role in Mexican American cultural incorporation and acceptance. The research will be conducted in two metropolitan areas with constrasting migration ecologies and histories: Atlanta, Georgia, and Houston, Texas, where he will focus on restaurant patrons and owners. Using a combination of ethnographic, cognitive, and archival research methods, the researcher will determine how the perceptions and meanings of Mexican American cuisine differ across ethnic, local, and sociocultural lines, and how they affect the cross-cultural acceptance and incorporation of Americans and Mexican immigrants. As part of the research, he will employ a preliminary ethnographic analysis to create two new scales, one to measure Anglo and African American acceptance of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and another to measure cuisine acculturation. The research's significance is multifaceted. The new analytical scales will be useful to other researchers and can contribute to future comparative social scientific research. The research also will aid better understanding of inter-ethnic interactions at the local level, how these vary regionally in the United States, and how these change over time.