With mounting evidence that low-income neighborhoods of color lack large supermarkets and thus may have limited access to fresh, affordable, and healthy foods, the concept of a food desert has come to dominate research and policy debates around food environments and their impacts on health in recent years. We contend that this metaphor, which suggests a lack of food, is deceptive and may harm the health of impoverished and racially diverse communities because it ignores the contribution of smaller stores, especially ethnic markets.
Current food desert applications in this context reflect classed and racialized understandings of the food environment that ignore the daily geographies of food provision in immigrant communities in favor of external interventions. Our research into ethnic markets in City Heights, a low-income urban neighborhood in San Diego with a diverse immigrant population, shows that they play an important role in giving access to affordable, fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate foods. Our findings add to the research by providing a more nuanced description of the food environment beyond supermarket access, focusing on immigrant neighborhoods, and highlighting ethnic markets as valuable partners in improving food security in diverse urban areas.
While the first ethnic grocery stores—food retailers catering to a migrant or diasporic culture—in the United States opened in urban minority neighborhoods in major cities during the 19th and early 20th centuries, such stores have now mushroomed across the country, wherever new migrant communities have sprung up. And, in many cases, the neighborhoods around these companies are becoming more diverse and globalized, even as their storefronts serve as cultural tradition hubs.
Why we should explore ethnic food stores
For various reasons, exploring ethnic food stores can be a delightful and enriching experience. Here are a few examples:
Multivariate cultural experience:
One of the main reasons for exploring ethnic food stores is to immerse oneself in a different society. These shops provide a chance to learn about various cultures' food, customs, and traditions. It is an opportunity to experiment with new and exciting flavors, ingredients, and cooking methods that may not be easily available in traditional grocery stores.
Health Advantages:
Ethnic food stores frequently stock fresh produce, herbs, and spices that are not commonly found in typical grocery stores. These ingredients are high in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and they can help to boost the immune system and promote overall health.
Local Business Support:
Many ethnic food stores are small, family-owned businesses that depend on neighborhood support. By visiting these stores, you can help to support the local economy and keep these one-of-a-kinds and valued businesses afloat.
Environmental Advantages:
Purchasing from ethnic food shops can also have environmental advantages. Many of these stores source their products from local farmers and suppliers, lowering the food's carbon footprint and supporting sustainable farming practices.
Taste a Variety of foods
Exploring ethnic food stores can also help to break up the monotony of everyday meals. Trying new cuisines and ingredients can be an exciting and fun way to spice up your diet and broaden your culinary horizons.
Explore an Authentic Experience
For nearly 70 years, generations of Latin American families have come to La Palma, a "Mexicatessen" nestled in San Francisco's historic Chicano neighborhood, the Mission District, for enchiladas and tamales that taste homemade. Aida Ibarra, the current co-owner, bought it with family members in 1983 after working in the hospitality industry for many years.
With only a few employees, managing a specialty kitchen, catering, and wholesale operation that supplies local restaurants is difficult. When the city was largely shut down during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ibarra recalled feeling obligated to keep the store open, despite the fact that their business had suffered as the restaurants they normally supplied had closed.
Although La Palma's retail offerings aren't as unique as they were when it was one of the city's only Latino-owned businesses in the 1950s, Ibarra says it's still the best place in town to buy handmade tortillas, which are sourced entirely in-house, right down to the corn kernels that are painstakingly ground into masa. Compared with mass-produced tortillas from the supermarket, the taste is “a world of difference.”
Plant-Based Food Specialty
Sometimes a store comes across a tradition that has recently become fashionable again. India Sweets & Spices, one of California's most established emporiums for South Asian snacks and sundries, began in the early 1980s as a nondescript Culver City storefront purchased by Raj Kumar Jawa with money he had saved from odd jobs like dishwashing and selling swimsuits on Venice Beach. Over the next two decades, he opened a slew of sister stores across California (plus one in Oregon) to serve the region's growing Asian immigrant communities.
Since Jawa began making homemade hot foods like samosas to sell to desi university students for "a dollar a dish," the store's deli section has become a go-to for local plant-based eaters, featuring a full menu of dals, curries, chaats, dosas, and Indian sweets by the pound. (plus, a more modern addition, the veggie burger). Jawa estimates that his restaurant now has a majority of non-South Asian customers.
Even though e-commerce poses a threat to entice customers away by making it easy to purchase a wide variety of South Asian ingredients online, the hot foods keep people coming through his doors.
The Ethnic Grocery Store's Future
Even though ethnic grocery stores have historically been a pillar of immigrant communities' cultures, in many American cities the rising cost of living, competition from online food delivery services, and gentrification's displacement of non-white neighborhoods threaten to undermine the viability of long-established immigrant-run markets and retail establishments.
The issue of succession must be addressed by these stores. In general, people aged 55 and older run more than half of private companies in the U.S. today (most of which are small businesses). Only a small percentage of these are passed down to family members; others may struggle to find a buyer or simply close down when the owners retire.
Owners of small ethnic groceries might be pleased to see their children transition to a secure professional job instead of the messy, taxing work of running a store because their primary goal in business was always earning a living rather than cultural preservation.
Conclusion
You can learn about other cultures and get the nutrients you need to live a happier, healthier life by incorporating both a conventional and ethnic diet into your life. You should never disregard the importance of nutrition when thinking about your quality of life.
Businesses could benefit from celebrating and embracing traditional and ethnic cuisines. Markets may draw more attention from customers looking to try new cuisines or simply those looking for nutrient-rich sources by preserving endangered and exotic foods.
It’s integral to note that ethnic and traditional foods have and will continue to change the world for the better. By providing high sources of nutrients, knowledge of cultures, and an ever-increasing demand in markets, these dishes are more than food – they are excellent sources of health, history, and happiness.