The act of eating defines and redefines borders. What constitutes “American” in our cuisine has always depended on a liberal crossing of borders, from “the line in the sand” that separates Mexico and the United States, to the grassland boundary with Canada, to the imagined divide in our collective minds between “our” food and “their” food. Immigrant workers have introduced new cuisines and ways of cooking that force the nation to question the boundaries between “us” and “them.” The stories told in Food Across Borders highlight the contiguity between the intimate decisions we make as individuals concerning what we eat and the social and geopolitical processes we enact to secure nourishment, territory, and belonging. Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.
