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

佐治亚大学博士生保罗·斯坎隆将在布伦特·柏林博士的指导下，研究移民群体融入东道国社会时，食物和文化如何相互作用。他的研究重点将是美国的墨西哥菜肴。研究人员将询问墨西哥饮食习惯是否以及如何在墨西哥裔美国人的文化融合和接受中发挥作用。这项研究将在两个移民生态和历史受限的大都市地区进行：佐治亚州的亚特兰大和德克萨斯州的休斯顿，他将在那里专注于餐馆的顾客和老板。使用人种学、认知学和档案研究相结合的方法，研究人员将确定墨西哥裔美国人烹饪的认知和意义如何在种族、当地和社会文化路线上有所不同，以及它们如何影响美国人和墨西哥移民的跨文化接受和融入。作为研究的一部分，他将使用初步的人种学分析来创建两个新的量表，一个衡量盎格鲁人和非裔美国人对墨西哥人和墨西哥裔美国人的接受程度，另一个衡量烹饪文化适应程度。这项研究的意义是多方面的。新的分析量表将对其他研究人员有用，并可为未来的比较社会科学研究做出贡献。这项研究还将有助于更好地了解地方一级的种族间互动，这些互动在美国的地区是如何变化的，以及随着时间的推移这些互动是如何变化的。

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.