How do we approach multiculturalism

[timotee_allouch-chantepie]

Growing up in one of the most diverse city in the world, the variety of foods and the multiculturalism it expresses has always been a given. It was natural for me, like it is for most people in western society, to grab some Mexican for lunch, Poke bowls for dinner, and Shakshuka for breakfast. What I failed to reflect on then, which I do now after the Buetnner reading, is that I always felt some sort of pride in this multiculturalism, personal pride. I felt like my city was a sincere hub of tolerance, diversity and cultural expression, and it didn’t hurt to be able to eat 2$ tacos and 10$ sushi from mom and pops Mexican and Japanese restaurants.

When Buetnner writes of “benevolent multiculturalism”, it is a reflexion of this misplaced pride that I felt, in which I place the city as a gracious host, as if it is a gift we are giving to other cultures to be able to exercise their practices, in this case food, in our city.
When Indians and other South Asians immigrated to the United Kingdom, their culinary culture became one with the national identity of Great Britain. In the same way I had, they had pridefully claimed this aspect of South Indian culture as one of their own, showcasing their willingness to integrate and incorporate only when it would put them in a favorable light. Αs Robin Cook puts it in his speech, “Such cultural traffic did not threaten British national identity.”

However well this reading has allowed me to reflect on this, I still believe it is important to nuance. While there is a subconscious pride within the Western population, there also exists a genuine pure intention in some of creating a perfectly multicultural culinary scene, which in some way, would reflect the integration, however harsh and tumultuous it has been and continues to be, into Western life. In this way, my pride has been transformed through this reading as gratefulness, as I see the 2$ tacos and 10$ sushi as a gift now.