Mushroom Tacos: Multicultural Festivals and Environmental Racism in a Rural Pennsylvania Town

ABSTRACT

Advancing recent literature that critically examines multicultural efforts to generate socio-economic inclusion, this article studies how, in a small yet affluent Pennsylvania town, multicultural festivals are part of a social milieu in which Latinx immigrants face continuing erasure and exploitation – manifested in precarious health and housing conditions. Utilizing ethnographic and qualitative methods, I show that, although the town’s multicultural festivals aim to give a voice and recognize minority communities, they have in some cases contributed to an environment in which Latinx peoples have for decades been silenced and overlooked, resulting in heightened rates of health issues related to dangerous housing. From a semiotic theoretical approach, the disconnect between increasing performative-visibility and ongoing marginalization of Latinx immigrants can be explained by multicultural festivals relying upon floating signifiers, as well as issues of structural power. My findings shed light on the nuanced cultural ways that the structural social and material suffering of minoritized, immigrant populations is overlooked through the invocation of purportedly emancipatory acts, as well as the lingering effects of the structural force of White Supremacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural sociology
• multiculturalism
• ethnography
• racism
• semiotics

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to several individuals who have contributed to the completion of this academic article.

First and foremost, I extend my sincere appreciation for Dr. David Rojas for his constant support and guidance throughout the entire research process. Without his expertise, encouragement, patience, thoughtful insights, and dedication, this article simply would not have come to fruition.

Furthermore, I extend my thanks to Matthew Baltz, Chase Gregory, Michael Drexler, Jasmine Mena, and Bret Leraul for their dedicated effort in reading previous versions of this article and providing substantial and invaluable feedback. Elizabeth Durden, Daniel Alvord, Bethany Collier, Emmanuel Cannady, Ned Searles, Sezi Seskir, and Apollonya Porcelli also provided very helpful comments and support.

Finally, I would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their incisive and meticulous feedback.

This article would not have been possible without your collective contributions, and for that, I am sincerely grateful.

Disclosure Statements

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Human Participants Research Statement

This current project was approved by the Internal Review Board at my university, classification number 2021-038.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 All names presented are pseudonyms.

2 Although the mushroom farmworkers come primarily from Mexico. there are large numbers (and increasing) of workers from Guatemala as well. Local NGO workers, however, most often refer to the farmworkers as ‘Mexican.’ The Latinx inhabitants of the town are mostly from Mexico, either in first, second, or third generation. Many of these individuals immigrated from the state of Guanajuato, particularly in the municipios (municipalities) of Moroleon, Uriangato, and Yuriria. The over-generalization of the Latinx population as a Mexican monolith is indicative of the prevailing legacy of white supremacy and its relation to Whiteness in its relation with the creation of an Other.

3 There is an extensive Latinx studies literature that would very fruitfully inform future research of the dynamics of Kennett Square.Tellez and Montoya (2022) provide an excellent study of dance at multicultural festivals in relation to cultural expression and community formation in the highly-Latinx populated regions in the United States. Delgadillo’s 2022 collection offers a wide array of studies about Latinx placemaking and cultural gathering in similar places in the United States. Each of these works, as well as many others, provide crucial context and nuance to conversations of Latinx placemaking. However, since this is not a study of Latinx placemaking, I decided that including the above information would muddle my argument that multicultural festivals are, in some cases, counterproductive towards ameliorating the social and health inequalities between the Latinx and white population.

4 More recently, however, the language of assimilation has been found to be dated, as assimilation has been tied to negative health outcomes of Latinx and other im(migrants) (e.g. Cedillo et al. 2021; Giuntella and Lonsky 2020).

5 To be clear, this paper is not a study of Latinx placemaking in Kennett Square.

6 It should be noted that the literature on the relationship between multiculturalism and racism in rural locales spans the globe, meaning that that contexts investigated are distinct.

7 Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish, with all translations being my own. These interviews were conducted from May 2021 to July 2021. Select follow-up interviews were conducted over zoom and skype. The Latinx workers I interviewed were non-black Latinx individuals. The NGO workers I interviewed were part of many different sorts of NGOS. They ranged from immigration-focused organizations to explicitly religious organizations to Latinx-health specific organizations to organizations focused on maternal health. Some were staffed mostly by non-Latinx white employees, and others had a majority of employees that were Latinx.

8 In the 1940s and 50s, the mushroom farms employed native-born whites and blacks as well, who were also supplanted by the Latinx farmworkers (Flammini 1999).

9 Much of the financial support for the festivals comes from the white-owned mushroom farms and the NGOS. Additionally, the NGOs often play a large role in conceptualizing the festivals in Kennett. For a specific example, The NGO Casa Guanajuato plays the largest role in organizing the Cinco de Mayo Festival, Dia de los Muertos events, and Hispanic Heritage month. Many of their staff are Latinx individuals from Mexico.

10 Many NGOs have booths at the festivals and use these booths to reach out to Latinx participants. Being ‘multicultural’ festivals, different Latinx cultures are displayed; various cultures from Mexico and the Caribbean are two such examples.

11 All quantities of money listed in this paper are in U.S. Dollars.

12 The frequent presence of the Asian population in the city square was mirrored in the multicultural festivals, but in an observational rather than a more participatory and embodied manner. In the multicultural festivals, many individuals of Asian descent observed the cultural practices and demonstrations of the festivals, but few of these individuals took an active part in these demonstrations, and even fewer of which were signaled as ‘Asian.’

13 This poll was conducted in a Facebook group titled ‘Kennett Square PA Community’ which has over 17 thousand members. Since I did not receive consent from the individuals who participated in the survey to share their individual results (and because the Facebook group is ‘private’), I will not list the poll here.

14 Per the request of the NGOs that I worked with, no pictures of the facilities at which I volunteered will be shared for reasons of anonymity.

15 Unless otherwise noted, all pictures were taken by myself.

16 A minority of non-Latinx white individuals sometimes participate in the festivals. However, they often differentiate themselves from the Latinx community through mobilizing concepts of ‘Americanness,’ including the waving of American Flags in their dances. These findings highlight, not only the effects of white supremacy, but the ability of the white gaze to constitute the Other.

17 In taking heed to these comments, I embrace an emic perspective of authenticity, that is, one defined from the perspective of my interlocutors themselves.

18 Unsurprisingly, the dances in the multicultural festivals do not depict the ‘mystical nature of Mexican culture.’ The dance this individual was referencing was the Jarabe Tapíto, the national dance of Mexico. And one of Mexico’s most well-known traditional dances. A dance of rich history spanning back to the 18th century, the dance typically represents the courtship between two lovers, a most human interaction. However, instead of learning more about the dance or having a more charitable interpretation, Carlos was quick to employ racist caricatures in his expounding on the situation. Such a hasty and racially-charged interpretation is indicative of the legacy of white supremacy, as well as its manifestations in internalized racism and internalized colonialism (see footnote 19 below).

19 It should be noted that, like the displays propagated by multicultural festivals, Carlos’s comments are indicative of more than one ‘meaning.’ Particularly important for this present case are that Carlos’s comments can be meaningfully conceptualized as a form of ‘internalized colonialism,’ a process by which oppressed groups wish not to be identified with subjugated populations (in this case, the floating category of ‘Mexican’ (Kent-Stoll 2020; Allen 2005). Again, the prevailing legacies of white supremacy loom large here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bucknell University: [grant no Greaves Research and Curricular Development Fund].