The presence/absence of nostalgia: Generational differences in the culinary and gastronomic encounters of Filipino migrants with “authentic” Filipino food

• Main Author: Uy, Jemimah R.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2020
• Subjects: Filipino diaspora; Foreign workers, Filipino; Nostalgia > Philippines; Group identity > Philippines; Food Studies; Migration Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/13404
• Institution: De La Salle University

Food has always been tied to identity. It allows us to locate people and make sense of who we are. However, with the advent of globalization—wherein human mobility is inevitable, the process of “locating” things and persons becomes no easy feat. With the Filipino palate continuously acquiring new tastes, I argue that there is both a presence and an absence of nostalgia in the varying encounters of Filipino migrants with “authentic” Filipino food. In this paper, I examine two generations of the Filipino diaspora. The first generation is comprised of Filipinos who moved out of the Philippines and settled in different parts of the globe. The second generation is comprised of the children of these Filipino migrants. This group is further divided into two categories: a) children of two ethnically Filipino parents and b) children of multicultural families. This particular study asks the following questions: 1) What criteria are involved in considering a specific food to be "authentically" Filipino? 2) Is there really such a thing as "authentic" Filipino food? 3) How does the presence/absence of nostalgia affect the two generations' identity formation process? To answer these questions, I shall look into the history of Filipino migration, and specifically how food acts as a driving force behind migration. I will also analyse an episode of The Migrant Kitchen and a short story published in Moving Portraits: Life Stories of Children of Migrant and Multicultural Families in Asia in order to contextualize my study on the second generation’s encounters with Filipino food. Both of these texts look into the presence and absence of nostalgic longings for the homeland through culinary and gastronomic discourses, particularly through the second generation's creation and/or consumption of fusion dishes.