La Cultura de República Dominicana has been integrated into New York communities for over one hundred years. New York City, New York is home to the largest Hispanic population in the United States, totaling over 2.2 million. A group of producers of NPR's podcast Latino USA organized a visit to a Harlem bodega to debut their 2015 podcast “A Day at the Bodega.” The podcast included interviews of owners, workers, and customers in Spanish, and insight into the everyday Dominican life in modern America. At the heart of these communities, and on every corner, are bodegas. A bodega is more than just a convenience store. Lined with a bright yellow awning, the bodega doors welcome all. It serves as the social center, a favorite lunch spot, and a learning opportunity for Hispanic entrepreneurs. There are more than 11,000 bodegas in New York City alone. Each bodega employs more than four to seven immigrants. It gives workers a chance to earn a steady living, learn the English language, and strengthen their ties to the community. Bodegas have become a staple New York City. According to New York City customers, everybody knows everybody, and not another store’s environment is comparable to that of the infamous bodegas. …show more content…
The shelves are lined with traditional Spanish staples such as rice, beans, and less healthy options like CoCoRico, a Puerto Rican Soda, and 50 cent snacks, high in sugar, fat, and carbs. The lunch menu consists of sandwiches such as 'Carne con Juevos.' Efforts to make food options healthier at bodegas have been made to reduce health problems in Hispanic communities. These communities hold the highest rates of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease in the nation. To combat this, the Healthy Bodega Initiative was passed. The idea was to lower the price of healthy food in bodegas to increase the demand for
Ruth Gomberg-Munoz's Labor and Legaility: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network, describes the lives of undocumented immigrants from Mexico who work as busboys In a Chicago restaurant. Gomberg-Munoz gives insight into the new lives of the boys, through her compilation of their experiences both before crossing the border and after moving away from home into an unknown world. As an ethnography, the book gives information and details of the workers without arguing or taking a stance on immigration itself; it is instead presented in a manner that attempts to give readers a full understanding of the undocumented life through the revelation of the ones living it. She provides readers with a perspective on the daily struggles faced when living
The Future of Foods Projects Presented at LA City Hall on Food Day 2017 Promote a Good Food Economy for All Smart Stop: Plant-Based Convenience Store Could not find info online Hank’s Mini-Market: Convenience Store Transforming into a Community Arts Hub and Healthy Food Store in Partnership with Sweetgreen The healthy neighborhood market network has been working with corner stores in south LA and Boyle Heights to offer more fresh produce and healthy food options. Hanks's Mini Market located on 3301 W Florence Ave, LA CA and has been transforming the community by providing its food resources to Sweetgreen restaurants. http://goodfoodla.org/policymaking/healthy-neighborhood-market-network/ Create a Culture Shift
In her groundbreaking ethnography, "Homegirls: Language and Cultural Practice Among Latina Youth Gangs,” anthropologist and linguist Norma Mendoza-Denton explores a modern perspective on the social politics of the Latino teenage gangs at Sor Juana High School in northern California. However, what sets her study apart from others is that she focuses less on the criminality of these gangs, and instead directs her attention to cultural, social, and linguistic ties that both unites and divides the groups discussed. Throughout her ethnography, which spans multiple years of research during the 1990s, she embodies the role of a confidant, friend, and mentor to the youth of the Mexican diaspora. To lay the groundwork for the remainder of the synopsis,
This new experience forced me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to find out what these new foods were and how Latinos use them. Upon entry, the only shopper in the store was I. The more time I spent looking through the aisles, the more customers began to come in. Most of those shopping were Latino. There were several Latino men who looked like they were on their lunch hour picking up items for lunch; there were also a couple of families with children that came in to do grocery shopping.
Increasing access to whole, fresh foods is a major step in combatting the growing obesity and health crisis in these neighborhoods. People cannot eat food they do not have access to and Wal-Mart is taking the first steps to change this. Proof of success is seen from, “The Center for Disease Control and Prevention which credits…a greater variety of fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods for a drop in obesity rates among preschoolers” (Brady 520). However,
19 years ago today in a Hispanic house hold two parents three siblings and the world to conquer. Screaming, laughing, learning and growing molded this one young lady to overcome all statics .Factors such as birthplace, extracurricular activities and the simple thing she couldn’t control, her origin were deciding factors for where she is present day. New York, the city that never sleeps, a city diverse in all aspects of life, the city where it all started. 18 years growing up in Harlem wasn’t all it was cracked up to be especially for a young Hispanic female. Being surrounded with drugs, violence and public disobedience were some of the easiest of distractions that I encountered every day.
One surprising health disparity amongst Latino immigrants involves integration into the American way of life. Upon arrival, most Latino immigrants are healthier than their American counterparts, a phenomenon termed the “Latino Paradox” by researchers at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health (Gordon). They noticed that when immigrants integrate into the US culture, their health starts to decline. This decline continues the longer they stay in the US. Part of this decline in health is thought to be caused by the addition of highly-processed foods to their diet that are cheap and more readily available than fresh, healthy foods.
One serious problem that poor, urban cities face is the lack of available healthy and nutritious food in their areas. With little to no access to wholesome food, city dwellers around the country are forced to consume extremely low-quality and unhealthy food on a daily basis. However, there are many different ways that we can fix this issue and they are not as difficult as people think. Also, fixing these problems are very beneficial for not alone urban city dwellers, but also grocery stores themselves. One way to solve the problem of not having access to healthy food options is for chain grocery stores to open up in urban areas.
However it doesn’t have a large impact on the food industry as such as consumers need to purchase food in order to survive. Although they may decrease quantity of foods they choose to buy, they are still willing to purchase basic foods that will sustain their health. Consumers are more likely during an economic downfall to spend their money on foods they require rather than want. The company as a result obtains an advantage from its competitors as they produce long lasting food options, which allows consumer’s to save during tough times. This highlights an opportunity for the company as they produce healthier and simple food varieties which many customers desire.
The 64-year old investigative reporter spent over eight years writing his remarkable book, Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, which was published in 1999. In his early life, Gonzalez was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico and was raised in East Harlem and Brooklyn. As a journalist, and before that as a Puerto Rican community activist who helped found and direct two national organizations, the Young Lords in the 1960’s, and the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights in the late 1970’s, Juan Gonzalez has spent decades living in and reporting on scores of Latino communities throughout the United States and Latin America, devouring in the process every study or account of the Latino experience he could find (Gonzalez, XXII). With the many historians that have conducted research in the recent decades, Juan realized that by connecting the past to the present and by crossing academic disciplines, he could touch on more than one Latino group while still making the entire process comprehensible to both Latinos and
She articulates the concept of one’s cultural identity as comprising more than one culture in a single crossbred word. While directly addressing her audience, Sotomayor also creates a profound emotional connection between herself and her audience. She differentiates some of the unique tastes she has acquired throughout her life, before speculating, “I bet the Mexican Americans in this room are thinking that Puerto Ricans have unusual food tastes.” Sotomayor calls upon members of the audience directly in hopes of making her message about existing outside of either a culturally homogenous or heterogeneous society more relevant and insightful to listeners. After pointing out that Puerto Ricans have unusual food tastes, she then emphasizes that “Some of us, like me, do” to use her food palette as the subject to show that just because she is Latina and like those foods, does not mean that all Latinas like these foods, too.
In her book, From Out of the Shadows, Viki L. Ruiz argues the contributions to history that was made by farm workers, activists, leaders, volunteers, feminists, flappers, and Mexican women. She explores the lives of the innovative and brave immigrant women, their goals and choices they make, and how they helped develop the Latino American community. While their stories were kept in the shadows, Ruiz used documented investigations and interviews to expose the accounts of these ‘invisible’ women, the communities they created, and the struggles they faced in hostile environments. The narrative and heartfelt approach used by Ruiz give the reader the evidence to understand as well as the details to identify or empathize with.
“The common denominator all Latinos have is that we want some respect. That 's what we 're all fighting for” - Cristina Saralegui. Judith Ortiz Cofer published the article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman,” where she expresses her anger towards stereotypes, inequality, and degradation of Latin Americans. Cofer explains the origins of these perceived views and proceeds to empower Latin American women to champion over them. Cofer establishes her credibility as a Latin American woman with personal anecdotes that emphasize her frustration of the unfair depiction of Latinos in society.
Crystal Henriquez Alcantara Juan Pinon Latino media 3 April 2023 For me, road trips with my parents are always memorable because they've been one of the few places where I see my Latina identity and my American identity come together. Usually it starts with my siblings and I favorite English-language pop songs. Eventually, when we're tired and falling asleep, however, I hear the same salsa and bachata songs that always play at our family parties. As soon as the music starts to play, my siblings suddenly perk up, singing along to the lyrics at the top of our lungs, much to the dismay of our parents who just want a quiet ride.
Nuestra Cosa Latina (Our Latin Thing) is a musical documentary revealing the exciting lifestyle of New York Latinos during the decade of the 1970s. It was filmed at a concert of the Fania All-stars at Club Cheetah and throughout New York City. Our Latin Thing is about the urban Hispanic experience - NYC style. Unfortunately, it reveals the Latin life in N.Y.C., from the illegal cockfights, to a Santeria ritual, and the everyday rhythms of El Barrio, it erratically goes into the community where the city sanitation sweepers seem never to have visited. Some of this material is interesting, much is cost-free, and all of it seems dedicated to solving the problem of how to ease the deadliness involved in photographing a musical performance.