Fiesta 1980 by Junot Diaz Food as Culture
An academic essay.
The essay Fiesta 1980 is found inside a collection titled Drown by Junot Diaz. It tells the story of a young boy, Junior, getting ready to go to a party to celebrate the coming of more of his relatives to America. The women, his mother especially, prepare the food as his father takes charge, issuing orders and punishments upon everyone. Junior analyzes his father and culture to see what it means to be a man. Strong men and subservient women are the stereotypes that inhabit the story, as food is used as a literary device into relationships and culture. I found the story interesting and decided to look more deeply at the use of food as metaphor and motif.
Food, Intimacy, & Desire
Culture and the language used to communicate that culture, are significant motifs in literary work. If we look even more deeply into the cultural aspects of a literary work and examine the cuisine and language used to describe, relate, and partake of it, we will find a whole new layer of subtext that informs and enriches any story that contains it. Junot Diaz demonstrates using cultural cuisine to create subtext in Fiesta 1980 through his use of the American language as the characters relate to food and to each other. Most cultural references center around food in this story, as well as the familial activities. In many cases words in a different language can be difficult to translate so there are words that need to be stated in their native tongue. Language can be a bit delicate in this way and is therefore worth exploring closely in literature. With this in mind we might ask why Diaz uses the Spanish language only sparingly in this story and more often uses American slang?
Language and food can be used as literary devices that serve symbolic purposes with many layers of subtext beneath them. They can be encoded with meaning (Douglas, 2019) that relates to community, culture, and behavior giving us subtext according to how they are presented in the text. In great literature a scene is usually about more than the physical objects being described.
Diaz uses food to symbolically show cultural assimilation, create intimacy between characters and illustrate character desires. In each case there are layers of language that reveal the subtext of the scene and the inner world of the characters, revealing a rich landscape of cultural mores relating to assimilation, intimacy, and desire. Since food is needed for survival it is intimately wrapped up in every culture and therefore most stories that relate to culture also address food.
First we have words that reference food in ways that do not signify eating but instead show cultural assimilation such as ‘sugar coat it’ (American slang) when Tia (a sister) sneaks food to Yunior so she can question him about the family. (p. 38) Then we have food used as a communication tool creating intimacy or distance between characters such as when the parents talk in the kitchen and mimi (his mother) puts her hands into the food to prepare it and doesn’t say much at all. (p. 33)
We will also see food signify a character’s sexual desire. “The sociological study of food should take account of the range of domestic situations in which food is produced and consumed, and consider the implications of food for gender, household, family” (Ferguson & Zukin, 1995, p. 197) Food is an important topic of literary analysis and a great lens to dive deeply into a writer’s work.
Hunger for Connection Beyond Food
Leslie Li on her culinary memoir “My memoir is not really about food. It’s about hunger. Hunger for communication. For connection. For continuity.” (Dusselier, 2009, p. 335) Hunger and communication play a huge role in Fiesta 1980 and are centered around eating as the family members struggle to define their new life in America. “Food offers a path to cultural preservation while others argue that it serves assimilationist purposes”. (Dusselier, 2009, p. 335) I believe Diaz’ use of food in Fiesta 1980 is about ‘hunger for connection and intimacy and serves to show cultural assimilation issues and illustrate intimacy and desire between the characters “Food sharing expresses both intimacy and distance… and the effects of urbanization.” (Mirsky, 1981, p. 129) I will briefly cover this later through David McKnight’s research into the mik-mungkan tribe where food is shown to facilitate marriage and sexual intimacy.
Character Backstory through Food
Gone is the notion that food is only for physical nourishment and is an unimportant topic to focus on in art and literature. (Dusselier, 2009, p. 334) In fact food and the rituals around it can set up a character’s entire backstory. This is evident in Fiesta 1980 as Yunior relates to being denied food, has traumatic experiences around eating, and is told his sickness is the fault of being in America. “The rules of the menu are not in themselves more or less trivial than the rules of verse to which a poet submits” (Douglas, 2019, p. 80) Food is a form of art in that it is something that is created even if to be consumed and is impermanent. “Food is a system of communication…a lens into the whole cultural package” (Dusselier, 2009, p. 331) It is a part of a culture just as verse and language are.
Food as Metaphor
Many words in this story reference food in ways that do not signify eating but instead show cultural assimilation or a character’s hunger for connection. The beginning of the story contains a slang reference to the boy’s mother finally “having meat on her since moving to America, she is no longer a flaca” (p. 1) which means to be skinny. (Bab.la, n.d.) This reference commonly means that we have eaten well and have gained weight as a result. Here he is saying that the United States did this to her, that food in America made her better in his eyes. He then goes on to contradict this by saying that she was skinny when his father met and then married his mimi, and later we learn that the mistress his father is with is thin. (p. 35) It is then safe to assume that his father likes his women skinny so why would meat on his mimi now be a good thing? He hints that the father will leave them soon (p. 1) so is this new meat on his mimi a contributing factor to the break up? “..cuisines reveal and shape social relations and connect the past with present concerns and future possibilities” (Dusselier, 2009, p. 334) Here a cuisine reference is connecting the present thought of the narrating main character as he relays a story about the past, with the known future outcome of events.
Are looks and size all that matter in a culture? If we glance at advertising we can possibly see that in his culture a little meat on a woman is a good thing but in America we easily see that thin is always in. Does his father want to fit in and be seen as successful by being with the type of woman this new culture says is ideal? We can’t really glean an answer to these questions from the story but food here is bringing up many issues beyond just saying ‘she ate more in America’. It is changing his mimi’s appearance and possibly effecting family cohesion and creating distance between his mother and father.
Intimacy and Distance via Food
I believe this is a factor because as Mirsky states “food sharing symbolizes social relationships and can therefore express both intimacy and distance.” (Mirsky, 1981, p. 129) Mimi may be eating more to create distance with the father. When women feel powerless they may use passive aggressive means to speak out. For many women I know food is often a weapon of choice to suppress anger, what they eat may be the only thing they can control in their life. In this way Diaz is able to subtly create subtext for this character that rings true for many female readers. “He didn’t say anything to nobody, not even my moms. He just pushed past her, held up his hand when she tried to talk to him and headed right into the shower.” (p. 23) The father silences her on many occasions creating distance between them and she responds by eating more and adding to that distance.
From an historical context, Diaz is hinting at such character subtext because on the date of this story, 1980, which is listed in the title, women were gaining independence and speaking out about media images of women and eating disorders, so this fits in with the time period of the story. A brief google search online shows many research papers and articles on the topic of women as objects in advertising being published in the late 70s. This was something being spoken about and a part of the new American women’s liberation movement all around the characters at the time of this story and possibly all around the author as he was writing it. Some things just become a part of an author’s discourse without realizing it or not. Art imitates life even if subconsciously created by the artist.
Avoiding Intimacy through Food
Another passage worth exploring is when the boy uses the term ‘Sugar-coated’. “I know interrogation when I hear one, no matter how sugar-coated it was. I didn’t say anything.” (p. 30) Food is in Yunior’s mouth so he can’t talk much but he also makes a decision not to communicate. This is how he also relates to his father, using food to avoid real communication and intimacy and it becomes a habit with others as the story moves forward. This is what all of the brothers learn to do as well. “Individuals learn a set of food habits from their parents and family, their ‘tradition’ or their ‘culture,’ and are resistant to change.” (Mirsky, 1981, p. 132) When they are eating dinner and trying to forget about the mistress being there, they focus on the ketchup to avoid talking about her and how they feel about being in her house. “When we ate dinner at her house.. we still acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. Pass the ketchup, man. No sweat, bro.” (p. 39) Food is again used to avoid real communication but they seem to bond over the act as they all agree to participate in it, it is something the family does.
“Another student explained how food sustained a relationship with her father. ‘It took me a while to hear the communication between me and my father occurring through food… He does not ask me how my day is or how school is; he asks me these things through food. He tells me, I know you are tired and stressed out from school or work; relax through eating a home cooked meal.’” (Dusselier, 2009, p. 336)
Unfortunately for our hero, his communication through food with his father is not as caring as this example is. Diaz shows us a father who uses food as a form of control and dominance creating distance with every member of the family as he questions when they ate, what they ate, and takes them out to eat. Even though he looks at his mistress as “if she were the last piece of chicken on earth” (p. 34) which is more American slang, and he desires to create intimacy with her, sharing food with his family seems like a chore for him and something he can use to create distance from them. His only real communication in the whole story with the boys is around food. Which makes food almost a character of its’ own in the story, it has such a big role in the plot, effects the characters in a deep way, and is ever present as they worry about Yunior vomiting when they go out.
Other characters also speak through food. Tia tries to create intimacy with Yunior when she comes in to rescue him with food hidden in her purse after his father has denied him dinner. (p. 39) This denial created distance between Yunior and his father and separated him from everyone else in the family as they all took part in the ritual of eating a traditional cultural meal. “Food sharing events have been interpreted (by Richards and Powdermaker) as occasions when the members of a social unit join together to express symbolically and maintain social cohesion, as opportunities for the establishment of social prestige through demonstrations of superior wealth and property… as expressions of friendship or covert hostility” (Mirsky, 1981, p. 129) Yunior is denied such friendship and cohesion in a hostile way by his own father and very publicly. In fact other characters in the scene are left feeling uncomfortable by it. Tia came in to rescue him from the situation but then she starts to interrogate him. Even she is not a true friend to him, she has ulterior motives and wants him to communicate information to her after using food to soften him up, or at least this is how Yunior seems to feel about it and why he decides to keep silent.
Romance of Food
There is also a romantic element that can add yet another deeper level to this analysis, we can examine food as a sexual symbol. “While many authors frequently adopt a tenuous assumption in order to ascertain the symbolic significance of various food substances, these investigators would probably not hesitate to assert that foods have a meaning beyond a strictly nutritious one.” (Mirsky, 1981, p. 130) In fact the wik-mungkan tribe “food plays a fundamental part in the kinship and marriage system…Eggs are believed to resemble a man’s testicles… so when a man gives someone this food he is giving a part of himself… Mudshells are considered to be like the vagina and linked with kneeling so they are a woman’s food… a brother gives his sister away in marriage so he is not allowed to give his brother in law any food because then he would be giving away too much of himself to another man… who kills the food determines who is allowed to eat it… (eating from a man’s spear is regulated by taboos).” (McKnight, 1973) Food as a communication tool for sexual relations is a rich research area and it seems fascinating.
“If food is treated as a code, the messages it encodes will be found in the pattern of social relations being expressed. The message is about different degrees of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, boundaries and transactions across the boundaries. Like sex, the taking of food has a social component, as well as a biological one.” (Douglas, 2019, p. 61)
Here we see food and sex are related in the act of taking something into us, creating intimacy and involving social interaction. In Fiesta 1980, Diaz gives us a twist and uses gender and food references to show us that some things are universal across all cultures. As I will later show, he has two significant lines that show the mixing of culture, food, and desire but he uses American slang instead of Spanish. This is significant because all of the food he mentions in the story are from the Spanish culture and referenced with Spanish words. In these lines he breaks with that motif and uses American slang (that involves food) when referring to women in intimate ways. This shows that no matter how different our culture and cuisine may be, we are all the same in some areas of life. Boys will be boys in any culture. Here we circle back to the idea that food can be used to symbolize a much deeper universal hunger. (Dusselier, 2009, p. 335)
These two lines will also show a reference to meals, not drinks, which creates deeper intimacy and connection between the characters being referenced because it “takes a lot more to create a meal than to pour a drink… The sharing of drinks expresses only too clearly the detachment and impermanence of simpler and less intimate social bonds.” (Douglas, 2019, p. 66) Food and sex are things we need in any culture and they both can be intimate or distancing depending upon the context in which they are used. The first significant line is when Yunior uses the word ‘taste’: “I could tell that my brother was going to gun for her. His taste in girls was predictable. He sat down between Leti and Mari and by the smiles on their faces I knew he’d do fine”. (p. 32) He knows his brother’s taste in women and the women are so objectified they don’t need to speak or communicate much. Their smiles say they are ready and willing in the boy’s eyes. We have all heard the saying that smiles, like love, are universally understood across all cultures. Culture doesn’t matter too much regarding romantic interests, we all speak the same language, though our specific tastes my differ and be culturally created.
“Gary Allen Fine considers the most ambitious, least codifiable, element of all – taste – which must nonetheless be codified and communicated if a restaurant is to be successful, that is, if it is to communicate consistently with its paying public… chefs wrestle with notions of taste and try to develop the language to differentiate and to mediate sensory impressions” (Ferguson & Zukin, 1995, p. 196)
Sensory Impressions with Food
Diaz uses food to mediate sensory impressions as a type of literary shorthand. He calls on our memories of taste and hunger to quickly tell us what the character desires. While pursuing our desires or tastes is universal, what we desire to taste specifically is mediated by cultural messages. “My work argued that America’s taste for candy was culturally created… it took some convincing to convert Americans living at the turn of the twentieth century into committed candy eaters… Once white women had been converted into indulgent, seductive, faithful, dedicated bonbon consumers, candy was recast as a food that men desired” (Dusselier, 2009, p. 332) These characters want a woman but the type of woman they choose may be culturally defined, just as specific candy cravings are usually culturally created, even though we all desire candy in general. Here women are the candy to be consumed and the word ‘taste’ creates that connection.
Then four pages later Yunior refers to how his father was looking at his mistress “Papi was looking at her like she was the last piece of chicken on earth.” (p. 36) Here we have the main course – which is chicken, the last piece – which means hunger, on earth – which means desire because there is no other piece to have. She is like this chicken to his father. We can imagine this type of extreme hunger and the immediacy of it. Instead of saying something like ‘he wanted her with all of his being’ and going into a long explanation this four word shorthand evokes our memories of hunger and gets the point across.
In the opening I discussed how terms in one language might not translate well into another language. Here we have subtext that shows the similarities of cultures when it comes to romantic relationships and basic human desires. There is no need to come up with a Spanish equivalent. American slang works perfectly to get the point across and says it all in only a few words.
Hunger and desire and intimacy are thus all intertwined, and they are universal experiences across cultures. Diaz uses this to get his points across regarding assimilation, intimacy, and desire in this story and he gives us a lot of character subtext with it, making this story a universal one for any reader in any culture. Food is a valid and fascinating topic to explore in literature and should be used more often by authors as a literary device to convey subtext and enrich a scene. If you love all things culinary or are a foodie you will love this essay. ©
References
Bab.la. (n.d.). Bab.la. https://en.bab.la/dictionary/spanish-english/flaca
Blaisdell, B. (1997). Review (Untitled). The Radical Teacher, (51), 42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20709934.
Diaz, J. (1997). Drown. Faber And Faber Ltd.
Douglas, M. (2019). Deciphering a meal. In Food and culture (pp. 29–47). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315680347-4
Dusselier, J. (2009). Understanding of food as culture. Environmental History, 14(2), 331–338. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40608476
Ferguson, P., & Zukin, S. (1995). What’s cooking? Theory and Society, 24(2), 193–199. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00993396
McKnight, D. (1973). Sexual symbolism of food among the wik-mungkan. Man, 8(2), 194. https://doi.org/10.2307/2800846
Mirsky, R. M. (1981). Perspectives in the study of food habits. Western Folklore, 40(1), 125–133. https://doi.org/10.2307/1499857
