Carole M. Counihan

A Tortilla Is Like Life (eBook, ePUB)

Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

An innovative portrait of a small Colorado town based on a decade's worth of food-centered life histories from nineteen of its female residents.

Located in the southern San Luis Valley of Colorado, the remote and relatively unknown town of Antonito is home to an overwhelmingly Hispanic population struggling not only to exist in an economically depressed and politically marginalized area, but also to preserve their culture and their lifeways. Between 1996 and 2006, anthropologist Carole Counihan collected food-centered life histories from nineteen Mexicanas¿Hispanic American women¿who had long-standing roots in the Upper Rio Grande region. The interviews in this groundbreaking study focused on southern Colorado Hispanic foodways¿beliefs and behaviors surrounding food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption.

In this book, Counihan features extensive excerpts from these interviews to give voice to the women of Antonito and highlight their perspectives. Three lines of inquiry are framed: feminist ethnography, Latino cultural citizenship, and Chicano environmentalism. Counihan documents how Antonito's Mexicanas establish a sense of place and belonging through their knowledge of land and water and use this knowledge to sustain their families and communities. Women play an important role by gardening, canning, and drying vegetables; earning money to buy food; cooking; and feeding family, friends, and neighbors on ordinary and festive occasions. They use food to solder or break relationships and to express contrasting feelings of harmony and generosity, or enmity and envy. The interviews in this book reveal that these Mexicanas are resourceful providers whose food work contributes to cultural survival.

"An important contribution to Mexican American culture." ¿ Oral History Review

"Counihan's book is well written and will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers... I would recommend this book to those whose interests lie in foodways, gender studies, ethnography and folklore. A Tortilla is Like Life would be a good addition to any reading list, and a beneficial resource for those who desire to understand the complex associations of gender, food, culture and ethnicity." - Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture

Produktdetails

• Verlag: University of Texas Press
• Seitenzahl: 272
• Erscheinungstermin: 24. Februar 2022
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780292782440
• Artikelnr.: 63556496

Autorenporträt

CAROLE M. COUNIHAN is Professor of Anthropology at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Around the Tuscan Table: Food, Family, and Gender in Twentieth Century Florence and the co-editor of the scholarly journal Food and Foodways.

Inhaltsangabe

1. Preface
2. Acknowledgments
3. Chapter 1. "I Did Do Something": Food-Centered Life Histories in Antonito,
Colorado
* Why Antonito
* Methodology: Food-Centered Life Histories and Testimonios
* History of Antonito
* Antonito Today
* Study Participants
* The Ethnographic Process
* Helen Ruybal and Carole Counihan on Ethnography
* Conclusion
4. Chapter 2. "The Stereotypes Have to Be Broken": Identity and Ethnicity in
Antonito
* Antonito: An Insider/Outsider Perspective
* Janice DeHerrera on Antonito
* Language and Education, Spanish and English
* Teddy Madrid on Freedom of Speech
* Ramona Valdez on English and Spanish
* Helen Ruybal on Learning English and Being Smart
* Teddy Madrid on Learning English from the Presbyterians
* Ethnic, Gender, and Religious Identity
* Ramona Valdez on Ethnic Terminology
* Teddy Madrid on the Connection with Spain
* Discrimination and Prejudice
* Helen Ruybal on Discrimination
* Teddy Madrid on Multiple Identities and Axes of Prejudice
* Ramona Valdez on Religious and Anti-Hispanic Prejudice
* Bernadette Vigil on Chicano Consciousness
* Teddy Madrid on Identity, Terminology, and Prejudice
* Conclusion
5. Chapter 3. "Part of This World": Meanings of Land and Water
* Introduction
* History of Land: Acquisition and Loss
* Helen Ruybal's Land Acquisition and Sale
* Land and Its Meanings
* Monica Taylor's Dream of Land, Family, and Place
* Monica Taylor's Perceptions of the Land
* Ramona Valdez on the Meanings of Land
* Teddy Madrid on Land, Home, and Family
* Water in the Southwest
* The Multiple Meanings and Uses of Water
* Teddy Madrid on the Traditional Uses of Water
* Teddy Madrid on Water as a Commodity
* Janice DeHerrera on Water as a Commodity
* Monica Taylor on Water as Life
* Conclusion: Land, Water, Place, and Chicano Cultural Ecology
6. Chapter 4. "Anything You Want Is Going to Come from the Earth": The
Traditional Diet
* The Locally Produced Subsistence Diet
* Ramona Valdez's Food Narrative
* Meat: Domesticated and Wild Animal Foods
* Helen Ruybal on Raising Cattle and Beef
* Teddy Madrid on Fishing, Hunting, and Making Jerky
* Cultivated Foods: Grains, Beans, Vegetables, and Fruits
* Asuncionita Mondragon on Her Grandparents' Garden in La Isla
* Teddy Madrid on Food Production in Las Mesitas
* Bernadette Vigil on Red and Green Chili
* Gathered Plant Foods and Medicines
* Helen Ruybal on the Importance of Piñon in Her Family
* Teddy Madrid on Gathering Wild Foods in Las Mesitas
* Ramona Valdez on Healing Herbs
* Conclusion: Food, Place, and Culture
7. Chapter 5. "We've Got to Provide for the Family": Women, Food, and Work
* Production, Reproduction, and Gender
* Helen Ruybal's Story of Courtship and Marriage
* Gender Expectations and Practices
* Teddy Madrid on Her Family's Flexible Gender Division of Labor
* Monica Taylor on the Strong Women in Her Family
* Helen Ruybal on Gender Relations and Ideals
* Women and Food Work
* Teddy Madrid on Food Preservation
* Monica Taylor on Gardening and Preserving Food
* Janice DeHerrera on Food Preparation
* Earning Money with Food
* Helen Ruybal on Making and Selling Cheese
* Ramona Valdez on Working in the Fields
* Celina Romero on Working as a Cook and Field Hand
* Asuncionita Mondragon on Raising Poultry and Selling Eggs
* Balancing Work and Home
* Teddy Madrid's First Paycheck
* Teddy Madrid on Being a Working Woman
* Janice DeHerrera on Balancing Job and Home
* Conclusion
8. Chapter 6. "It's a Feeling Thing": Cooking and Women's Agency
* Cooking and Agency
* Teddy Madrid's Cooking Adventures
* To Cook or Not to Cook
* Helen Ruybal's and Her Sister's Different Approaches to Cooking
* Janice DeHerrera's Cooking Expectations
* Cooking, Self-Expression, and Emotional Connection
* Janice DeHerrera on Creativity and Cooking
* Janice DeHerrera on Cooking as Emotional Communication
* Cordi Ornelas's Paella
* Learning and Teaching Cooking
* Janice DeHerrera on Learning How to Cook
* Monica Taylor on Learning to Cook and the Family Biscochito Recipe
* Cooking and Gender
* Teddy Madrid on Cooking after Marriage
* Helen Ruybal on Her Husband Cooking
* Monica Taylor on the Chili Wars
* Conclusion
9. Chapter 7. "Meals Are Important, Maybe It's Love": Mexicano Meals and
Family
* Family in Antonito
* Janice DeHerrera on Family Ties versus Individual Ambition
* Teddy Madrid on Her Father's Family Charge
* Mexicano Family Meals
* Martha Mondragon on Family Meals and Television
* Janice DeHerrera on the Importance of the Family Meal
* Meals and Gender Roles
* Janice DeHerrera on Restaurants, Her First Communion, and Family
Gender Power
* Meals, Socialization, and Respect
* Janice DeHerrera on Meals in Her Family of Origin
* Martha Mondragon on Grace before Meals
* Teddy Madrid on Family Meals, Respect, and Socialization
* Asuncionita Mondragon on Teaching Spanish at Family Meals
* Conclusion
10. Chapter 8. "It Was a Give-and-Take": Sharing and Generosity versus Greed
and Envy
* Cooperative Labor Exchanges
* Cordi Ornelas on Work Parties
* Yolanda Salazar on Making and Selling Tamales
* Sharing and Generosity
* Asuncionita Mondragon on Sharing Food with Neighbors
* Helen Ruybal on Sharing Honey and Meat
* Greed and Envy
* Carmen Lopez and Helen Ruybal on Sharing, Cuzco, and Envidia
* Helen Ruybal on Envy
* Envy and Witchcraft
* Helen Ruybal on Witchcraft, Curanderas, and Envy
* Conclusion
11. Chapter 9. "Come out of Your Grief": Death and Commensality
* The Wake
* Cordi Ornelas on Foods at the Wake
* Helen Ruybal on Death, Velorios, and Funerals
* Food Gifts for the Bereaved
* Janice DeHerrera on Food and Death
* Martha Mondragon on Death and Food Sharing
* Farewell Dinners
* Yolanda Salazar on Death, Community, and Commensality
* Helen Ruybal on Farewell Dinners
* Rending and Mending Community
* Helen Ruybal on Different Funeral Traditions
* Teddy Madrid on Presbyterian Funeral Feasts
* Janice DeHerrera on the Meaning of Food at Funerals
* Conclusion
12. Chapter 10. "Give Because It Multiplies": Hunger and Response
* Poverty and Food Insecurity
* Bernadette Vigil on Caring and Hunger
* Janice DeHerrera on Traditions of Sharing Food
* Traditional Foodways, Sharing, and Making Do
* Teddy Madrid on Hunger, Scarcity, and Sharing
* Janice DeHerrera on Making Do with Beans, Tortillas, and Potatoes
* Hunger in School
* Janice DeHerrera on Hunger in the Elementary School
* The Antonito Food Bank
* Teddy Madrid on Presbyterian Support of the Food Bank
* Janice DeHerrera on Hunger, Conscience, and the Food Bank
* Conclusion
13. Chapter 11. Conclusion: "Our People Will Survive"
* The Fourth of July Meal
* Unpacking the Fourth of July Meal
* Explanations for the Antonito Diet
* Toward the Future
14. Appendix 1. Topics in Food-Centered Life Histories
15. Appendix 2. Categories of Analysis
16. Appendix 3. Population of Antonito, Conejos County, and Colorado, 1880-2000
17. Appendix 4. Wild Plants Used for Food or Healing in the Antonito Area
18. Notes
19. Glossary of Spanish Terms
20. Bibliography
21. Index