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Supper and segregation: navigating difference through food in Chicagoland

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Supper and segregation: navigating difference through food in Chicagoland

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SUPPER AND SEGREGATION:

NAVIGATING DIFFERENCE THROUGH FOOD
IN CHICAGOLAND

by

Andrea Wenzel

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)

August 2017

Copyright 2017 Andrea Wenzel
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... p.4
LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... p.5
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... p.6
PROLOGUE .................................................................................................................... p.7
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... p.13
Research site .............................................................................................................. p.14
Intervention cases....................................................................................................... p.25
Overview of the Dissertation ..................................................................................... p.32
CHAPTER 1: Culinary imaginaries and communication across difference .................. p.34
Food communicates culture ....................................................................................... p.34
Communication across difference.............................................................................. p.39
Dialogue and race ...................................................................................................... p.46
Conclusion: Culinary imaginaries, communication networks, and dialogue strategies 52
CHAPTER 2: Methods and materials ............................................................................ p.56
Interviews, food logs, and culinary maps .................................................................. p.58
Positionality ............................................................................................................... p.63
Analysis...................................................................................................................... p.63
CHAPTER 3: Culinary imaginaries and mobility ......................................................... p.65
Eating food of the ‘other,’ eating with the ‘other’ ..................................................... p.66
Mapping mobility....................................................................................................... p.68
High mobility ............................................................................................................. p.69
Moderate mobility ...................................................................................................... p.75
Low mobility .............................................................................................................. p.80
Conclusion: imaginaries and mobilities ..................................................................... p.89
CHAPTER 4: Dialogue and Dinner .............................................................................. p.92
Diversity Dinners ....................................................................................................... p.93
Table Talks............................................................................................................... p.106
Meal Sharing ............................................................................................................ p.112
Lessons learned: Agonism, colorblindness and conviviality ................................... p.119
CHAPTER 5: Talking across divides .......................................................................... p.123
Silence on race and immigration.............................................................................. p.126
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Selective engagement............................................................................................... p.133
Engaging on race and immigration .......................................................................... p.137
Conclusion: Barriers and facilitators to interaction ................................................. p.139
CHAPTER 6: Recipes for dialgoue? ........................................................................... p.142
Culinary imaginaries and mobility in the era of Trump .......................................... p.143
Chicagoland dialogue initiatives .............................................................................. p.148
The Trump-era table ................................................................................................ p.153
Contributions of this dissertation ............................................................................. p.163
Limitations and future directions ............................................................................. p.171
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ p.177
APPENDIX A: Food and media log ............................................................................ p.183

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Demographics of participants ...................................................................... p.59
Table 2: Typology of culinary imaginaries ................................................................ p.67
Table 3: Mobility levels ............................................................................................. p.68
Table 4: Outgroup interaction on contentious issues-demographics ....................... p.125

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Chicagoland study areas ............................................................................. p.14
Figure 2: Chicago’s South Suburbs ........................................................................... p.20
Figure 3: Evanston ..................................................................................................... p.23
Figure 4: Bon Appetit tent at Chicago Gourmet ........................................................ p.24
Figure 5: Culinary map of “Chris”............................................................................. p.70
Figure 6: Culinary map of “Jasmine” ........................................................................ p.72
Figure 7: Culinary map of “Dan”............................................................................... p.74
Figure 8: Culinary map of “Pete” .............................................................................. p.75
Figure 9: Culinary map of “Tara” .............................................................................. p.77
Figure 10: Culinary map of “Jean” ............................................................................ p.79
Figure 11: Culinary map of “Gwen” .......................................................................... p.80
Figure 12: Culinary map of “Becky” ......................................................................... p.86
Figure 13: Culinary map of “Stacy” .......................................................................... p.87
Figure 14: Meal Sharing table of “Trisha” .............................................................. p.114
Figure 15: Diversity Dinners 20
th
Anniversary event .............................................. p.149
Figure 16: Program and survey at the 20
th
Anniversary event ................................ p.149
Figure 17: Place settings at a 100 Days 100 Dinners meal in New York ................ p.154
Figure 18: Place setting at Tunde Wey’s 1882 dinner ............................................. p.159
Figure 19: Discussion questions and menu for Tunde Wey’s 1882 dinner ............. p.160

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ABSTRACT

The metropolitan region of Chicago is paradoxically infamous for segregation and at the
same time celebrated for the cultural diversity and global flavors of its neighborhoods. This
dissertation explores how residents juggle these competing narratives using food as a lens to
examine the encounters across boundaries of difference people do and do not have. Drawing
from communication infrastructure theory and cultural studies concepts regarding race and place,
I use interviews, mental mapping, and food logs with 57 residents to code what they eat, where,
and with whom. I then examine variation in participants’ mobility (where they travel for food)
and their willingness to communicate with outgroup members about contentious racial justice
issues. At the same time, using ethnographic observation and interviews, I explore three
initiatives (Diversity Dinners, Table Talks, and Meal Sharing) that connect diverse groups of
residents through meals in private homes in three areas of Chicagoland. For each case, I examine
the meals’ objectives, organization, facilitation styles, and the experiences of participants. I argue
that these food and dialogue initiatives have had value for their participants. However, to move
to a higher level of conviviality, with the potential for political solidarity, groups would need to
create more frequent and sustainable connections to link participants to communication
infrastructure and existing storytelling networks—and to adjust facilitation so it strategically
challenges frames of colorblind ideology and allows for the critical recognition of difference.
Overall, I conclude that food discourse can offer useful insights into how Chicagoland residents
view the region, how it is changing, and their sense of belonging to it—for good or ill. At the
same time, food initiatives and their potential must be viewed as operating within the sometimes
bitter structural constraints of geography, communication ecologies, and local racial power
dynamics.
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PROLOGUE

On November 24, 2015, flying into Chicago to begin fieldwork for my dissertation
examining the intersection of race, place and food, I was greeted at the airport with the release of
gruesome video of the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The video rocked the
city, led to allegations of a city-wide cover-up, and calls for the Mayor to resign. Reaction to the
video also highlighted the chasm separating how life was experienced and perceived by Black
and white Chicagoans. A June 2016 New York Times/Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that
while 62% of Black residents felt there was a lot of discrimination against African Americans,
only 36% who identified as whites and 40% who identified as Hispanic felt this.
1
Not for the first
time, there was a sense of parallel worlds, a sense that was only amplified by the racially charged
2016 electoral season and its results. As white progressives in a solidly blue Chicago shook their
heads in disbelief at the Trump victory, many African Americans observers and scholars asked,
“Why were you surprised?”
2
What about the narratives circulating in these worlds allowed
residents to have such different understandings and expectations?
In recent years, countless analysts have diagnosed U.S. society as polarized along lines of
politics, race, and class.
3
Many have warned that these divisions can be amplified by the
personalization of news and social media filter bubbles (Bakshy et al., 2015; Stroud, 2010;
Pariser, 2012). Countless post-election thought pieces were devoted to the vastly different news

1
New York Times/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of Chicago residents, May 2016:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2824824-Chicago-Trn-Final.html
2
See Saturday Night Live’s skit with Dave Chappelle for a comic illustration:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/election-night/3424956 or Melissa Harris Perry’s
reflection at Chicago Humanities Festival: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi5RXtHC2Dg
3
Pew’s work on polarization includes: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/7-
things-to-know-about-polarization-in-america/ and
http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/
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diets of “blue feeds” and “red feeds” on Facebook.
4
These sentiments left me, like many,
grasping to identify spaces—both of discourse and in the physical world—that have the potential
to play a bridging role. They have also forced me to question what the goal of “bridging” would
be and what it would look like.
The seeds of my research questions were planted, as most are, close to home. While
visiting my parents who generally have the television fixed on Fox News, I noticed they
occasionally would flip over to the Food Network. While swapping Bill O’Reilly for Guy Fieri
5

was not an inherent good, it raised the question of whether storytelling about food could offer a
vehicle to reach an otherwise divided population with shared narratives.
This question was amplified when I recalled experiences I had heard relayed about food
and conflict resolution. While working in Afghanistan with a group producing educational radio
programs, I learned about traditions in many Afghan villages where residents would negotiate a
conflict, from a car accident to a family dispute, over a collectively prepared and eaten meal. I
also recalled how my own parents, Midwesterners from a conservative background, were moved
by a meal they shared in the home of a Muslim Afghan family living in London. The meal
offered dimension to a population category they had previously only seen portrayed on Fox
News. But this opportunity for exposure was not replicable for their neighbors in Indiana, nor
were they able to follow up after they returned from their first ever trip abroad.
I began looking for examples of intercultural culinary diplomacy around the U.S. that
may have the potential to be scaled. I visited an initiative in a Denver suburb that used potlucks

4
See the Wall Street Journal’s project comparing Facebook streams from the right and left:
http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/#/president-trump
5
Bill O’Reilly, at the time, hosted the conservative Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor, while
Guy Fieri is a celebrity chef and has hosted the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, as
well as other shows.
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to bring new immigrants together with police to discuss local regulations and alternative ways of
organizing a more inclusive and multicultural neighborhood watch.
6
I tasted Conflict Kitchen’s
interpretation of the Iranian dish, kookoo sabzi, as they tried to raise awareness of the cultures
and stories of people from countries which the U.S. is in conflict with by selling food from a
stand in a Pittsburg park.
7
In the suburbs of D.C., a chef relayed to me how he envisioned his
interpretation of halal soul food as a way to connect African Americans with Muslims of
numerous cultural backgrounds.
8

Unfortunately, as I began to examine food studies literature, I also found more bitter
examples of food’s limitations and potential to alienate. As Gustavo Arellano (2012) vividly
documented by tracking anti-immigration politicians with a penchant for Mexican food, liking
the cuisine of a culture did not necessarily translate into empathy for the people who made the
food. Even when trying food from another culture is done with “good intentions” to show
appreciation for diversity, this is complicated by historical tendencies for U.S. foodie culture to
be associated with whiteness and the acquisition of cultural capital (Johnston & Baumann, 2014;
Naccarato & Lebesco, 2012). White consumers who see themselves as “discovering” or
“elevating” the cuisines of cultural others have been accused of “culinary colonialism”,
“Columbusing”, and appropriation (General, 2016; Heldke, 2001; Salinas, 2014; Tipton-Martin,
2015). Here, I found research questions on my own plate, as I myself was, and am, implicated as
a relatively privileged white consumer who frequently eats and cooks food associated with
multiple cultures. Given existing structures and power dynamics, was it possible to go beyond

6
http://potluckdiplomacy.tumblr.com/post/58354903830/a-different-flavor-of-neighborhood-
watch
7
http://potluckdiplomacy.tumblr.com/post/51237840073/conflict-cuisine
8
http://potluckdiplomacy.tumblr.com/post/55045923071/the-magic-of-bean-pie
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consumption of the other (hooks, 1992) to make cross-cultural eating a more equitable act of
exchange and learning?
In wrestling with these questions, I began to look at how intercultural food encounters are
rooted in, and complicated by, place. As a member of the Metamorphosis research group, I
learned about the “ethnoburb” of Alhambra, California. This Los Angeles County city had
transitioned from a mostly white population, to white with a Latino minority, to over half
ethnically Chinese, 30% Latino, and 10% white. Using communication infrastructure theory
(Ball-Rokeach et al., 2001; Kim and Ball-Rokeach, 2006) as a framework, colleagues found that
residents largely subscribed to ethnically-bounded “storytelling networks” (Chen et al., 2013).
That meant Asian, Latino, and white residents generally did not use the same media, connect to
the same organizations, or interact with fellow residents from other ethnic backgrounds. Because
of this, they lacked a common understanding about their community and what community issues
they shared. I wondered whether these residents were eating at the same restaurants, and what
sorts of stories were circulated around food spaces.
Conducting exploratory research through a survey, follow up interviews, and
observations of restaurants, I found that conversations about food could be used as a diagnostic
method to uncover how residents felt about demographic change (Wenzel, 2016). This resonated
with findings of theorists who have looked more broadly at the intersection of race, ethnicity,
and space in the context of demographic change, in that these conversations were often layered
with exclusionary histories, assumptions of racial hierarchies, and concerns about power and
displacement (Brown-Sarancino, 2009; Cheng, 2013; Saito, 1998). In the case of Alhambra,
local racial power dynamics meant complaints about a grocery store changing from an
“American” store to an Asian-American owned store quickly became about more than the
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quality of the produce. Even when residents were proximate in the same restaurants, the way
they interpreted the spaces varied greatly as they processed experiences through ethnically-
bounded culinary imaginaries.
The concept of culinary imaginaries, which I discuss further in Chapter 1, adapts the
concept of communication ecology (Ball-Rokeach et al., 2012), which looks at the network of
communication resources individuals and groups assemble to pursue a goal within a larger
communication environment. It looks at narratives circulating about food, place, and difference
that participants encounter in the communication resources they come across in their everyday
food practices, social and associational ties, and use of media related to food. The idea of
culinary imaginaries also accounts for racial formation and local racial power dynamics (Cheng,
2013; Omi and Winant, 1994), and food’s power to communicate and negotiate identity
(Gabaccia, 1998; Tate, 2003; Williams-Forson, 2006), by factoring in participants’ personal
culinary biographies and how those connect with various cultural narratives about food, ‘us’, and
‘other’.
In this dissertation, I apply and further develop the concept of culinary imaginaries in a
city where race and food are frequently part of public discourse. The Chicago region is a place
where many residents lead segregated lives and, as mentioned, have vastly different
understandings of issues such as police violence and discrimination. At the same time, Chicago
is a city with a history of attempting food diplomacy efforts. There have been organized efforts
to use food and culture to bridge racial and ethnic barriers since at least the 1950s (Eulenberg,
1959). The dissertation, then, asks what are the culinary imaginaries of participants? It explores
whether these imaginaries are ethnically bounded, and if not, what factors account for bridging
imaginaries. It also makes the case for using inquiry into culinary imaginaries and food discourse
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more broadly as a diagnostic method to explore how residents think about matters of race and
privilege in their community. Finally, the case studies seek to critically examine initiatives that
bring diverse groups of residents into proximity around food, particularly initiatives that take
place in the homes of strangers. They attempt to contribute to an understanding of the potential
and limits of food-related dialogue projects by looking at strategies employed and challenges
faced by different initiatives. Ultimately it seeks to understand whether and under what
circumstances food may facilitate bridging spaces that become safe spaces for cross-cultural
dialogue on racial justice—or, when dialogue is not possible or appropriate, spaces of listening
and learning that might lead to the questioning of whiteness and power structures. Such dialogue
is seen as a transitional goal—a precondition for building a politics of solidarity in multiethnic
communities.
Throughout this dissertation, I take a normative stance that contributing to social change
in the direction of social justice should be the ultimate goal of academic research, which when
possible should be conducted in dialogue with practitioners. For this project, while I do not
conduct pure engaged or participatory research, I have attempted to share both occasional interim
reflections and summaries of my findings in a way that may be useful for participating
organizations in their own future planning. Critical reflections on the relative merits and
limitations of both the goals of such projects and the realities of their implementation may have
utility not only for these organizations but other who may attempt future interventions.

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INTRODUCTION
On a hot July day, two narratives of Chicago converged in its downtown Grant Park. The
2016 Taste of Chicago festival offered the officially preferred story of Chicago as a “city of
neighborhoods”
9
and global flavors. Tourists and residents of the region stood in lines to
purchase bites of pork belly, Italian beef, or esquites from vendors from around the city. In an
illustration of Chicago’s status as a “foodie” haven, visitors to Taste could also watch a cooking
demonstration by a “Celebrity Chef du Jour”, or join the audiences watching tapings at the “Food
for Thought Culinary Podcasts” tent. But around 4pm, Taste visitors became the audience to
around 100 protestors aligned with Black Lives Matters movement as they gathered at the
festival with signs proclaiming “Stop Racist Police Terror!”, “Stop the War on Black America!”,
and references to the recent police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. After staging a
symbolic die-in, the protestors moved on to other parts of downtown as Taste attendees looked
on, some continuing their food purchases, others voicing support.
10

While this moment may have jarred the senses of festival goers, it illustrates the multiple
and contradictory realities of how the Chicago metropolitan region imagines and represents
itself. For some, the city offers a cosmopolitan feast to be explored. But who does the exploring
and what areas are on the exploratory map is shaped by a legacy of structural racism that often
excludes many South and West side neighborhoods and their largely African American and
Latinx residents. This dissertation considers how these multiple Chicago’s co-exist and inform
one another. It asks whether their intersection may offer openings for interventions attempting to

9
The phrase “Chicago is a city of neighborhoods” has become a cliché, albeit one with
sociological and political roots: https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-city/how-are-chicago-
neighborhoods-formed/0ea9a3d1-9719-4e95-ab51-b53fa477bdad
10
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20160709/downtown/police-brutality-protesters-march-
through-taste-of-chicago
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facilitate dialogue on issues of racial justice—or at least offer a barometric tool. Before
overviewing these intervention cases, I offer an overview of the regional site of study.

Research site: Changing Chicagoland
The Chicago Metropolitan
Statistical Area, or Chicagoland,
is a sprawling area with some 9.5
million residents (2010 Census).
A comprehensive analysis of the
region’s politics, demographics
and history is beyond the scope of
this study. Instead, the paragraphs
to follow will share some overall
trends shaping the region’s ethnic
and racial population
distributions, racial formation,
and hierarchies. Particular
attention will be paid to areas that
house case studies which will be
overviewed later in this chapter,
including the City of Chicago, the
northern suburb of Evanston, and
the South Suburbs.
Image Copyright, 2013, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Rector and
Visitors of the University of Virginia (Dustin A. Cable, creator)
Figure 1. Chicagoland study areas (Racial Dot Map)
South Suburbs
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Chi City
Chicago has been in the sociological spotlight since the dawn of sociology. As the
birthplace of the Chicago School, it is the grounds on which Parks and Burgess’ (1967) theory of
city growth and neighborhood change was mapped, and later contested. Sociologist Robert
Sampson has argued that the city offers “a lens through which to view contemporary American
cities” and beyond (Sampson, 2012, loc 518). It is unsurprising, then, that there has been no
shortage of literature reflecting on the segregated nature of Chicago’s 77 official “community
areas”
11
or more than 200 unofficial neighborhoods (Massey and Denton, 1996; Moore, 2016).
12

At the time of my fieldwork in 2016, Chicago was also garnering national and
international media headlines due to record-breaking levels of gun violence (even before Trump
labeled it the home of “American carnage”) and police brutality—but also for dynamic protests
and grassroots activism. The moment led many to reflect on the very different lives led by
residents of different parts of Chicago. For example, a New York Times survey asked residents
not only about their experiences with the police and job discrimination, but also whether they
ever felt “treated unfairly in a store or restaurant because of your racial or ethnic background.”
Answers given by African American, Latina/o, and white respondents varied dramatically (51%
of African Americans said ‘yes’, compared with 30% of Latina/o, and 11% of white
respondents).
13

11
http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/doit/general/GIS/Chicago_Maps/Commu
nity_Areas/Community_Areas_w_Number.pdf
12
Chicago neighborhood names and boundaries fluctuate and are contested:
http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/doit/general/GIS/Chicago_Maps/Citywide_
Maps/City_Neighborhoods_1978_11x17.pdf
13
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2824824-Chicago-Trn-Final.html
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To understand the experiences Chicago residents have had in stores and restaurants—and
why this is meaningful, it is helpful to consider patterns of demographic change and regional
racial formation (Cheng, 2013; Omi and Winant, 1994) which have long influenced what bodies
are welcomed in which spaces. As Sampson (2012) points out, the “neighborhood facts”, or
“spatially inscribed social differences” (loc 306) of Chicago vary greatly from one part of the
city to another, as “the cultural principle of difference is layered onto the ecological landscape”
(loc 1093). Chicago continues to bear scars from its legacy of government regulated housing
segregation which was followed by lingering customary practices. While at the city level,
Chicago is highly diverse, at the level of neighborhoods it usually scores at or near the top of the
list of most segregated cities.
14
Today, the average white resident lives in a neighborhood that is
71.5% white
15
--mostly in North and Central areas of the city, with some small pockets, including
remnants of Irish working class enclaves, on the South and West sides.
While in 1890 three-quarters of Chicago was of mostly European immigrant stock and
only 2% African American, by the end of the Great Migration (1915-1970) a third of the city was
Black.
16
Over this time, racial lines were redrawn and hardened in an attempt to confine African
Americans residents to what became the Black Belt on the South and, later, West sides of
Chicago. African Americans who attempted to move into white communities were met with
intimidation, and at times, rioting and bombings (Wilkerson, 2010). In the late 1920s, the
Chicago Real Estate Board pushed the adoption of racially restrictive covenants
17
to prevent
property owners from selling or renting to African Americans around the city and in northern

14
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-diverse-cities-are-often-the-most-segregated/
15
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-segregation-declines-neighborhoods-change-met-
20160103-story.html
16
http://dcc.newberry.org/collections/chicago-and-the-great-migration
17
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1067.html
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suburbs such as Evanston and Skokie. Such real estate practices expanded the category of
whiteness, as working class Irish and Italian immigrants, who previously had not been
considered fully white, were allowed into the white neighborhoods and suburbs (Lewinnek,
2014).
Chicago’s now large Latinx community was initially viewed as a buffer population
between white and Black neighborhoods (Alvarez, 2014). Mexicans first came to the area in the
early 1900s, later joined by Mexican Americans and Puerto-Ricans. The community experienced
rapid growth starting in the 1960s and now makes up 29% of the overall population (2010
Census).
18
Longstanding Mexican communities include the Westside communities of Pilsen,
Little Village, and Back of the Yards
19
, with large Puerto Rican communities in Humboldt Park
and Logan Square.
20

Over time many Chicago neighborhoods home to communities of color, including Pilsen,
Humboldt Park, and Logan Square, have experienced gentrification largely due to an influx of
affluent and mostly white newcomers to the urban core. As with many cities (Brown-Saracino,
2009; Cheng, 2013; Wenzel, 2016), in changing Chicago neighborhoods, food spaces have often
become flashpoints for anti-gentrification and displacement concerns. A number of coffee shops
and restaurants have had windows smashed or signage tagged with graffiti suggesting gentrifiers
were not welcome,
21
though acts of vandalism have sometimes led patrons to rally support for
the establishments.
22

18
http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/map/IPE120213/1714000/accessible
19
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/824.html
20
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1027.html
21
http://chicago.eater.com/2015/1/26/7915993/anti-gentrification-sign-2nd-time-bow-truss-
pilsen
22
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150610/humboldt-park/grandma-js-thanks-anonymous-
vandal-after-busiest-week-ever
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In Chicago’s African American neighborhoods, there have been fewer occasions for
concern regarding food establishments moving in. There have been some exceptions, perhaps
most notably the construction of a Whole Foods into the largely disinvested Englewood
neighborhood.
23
However, the Black Belt has to date proven largely impervious to gentrification
(Anderson and Sternberg, 2012; Hwang and Sampson, 2014), with a relatively limited array of
restaurants (Moore, 2016). In some areas directly adjacent to Chicago’s downtown, such as the
South Loop, African American residents have been displaced by development and rising rents.
However other communities, such as Bronzeville, have endured decades of largely unrealized
rumors of impending gentrification (Anderson and Sternberg, 2012; Moore, 2016). This is not to
say the Black community has been static. The city of Chicago has overall become less Black,
24

with African Americans disproportionately affected by bad loans and foreclosures from the
housing crisis. Others have left or seek to leave due to a lack of investment, services, and a crisis
of violence plaguing their communities.
25
From 2000 to 2010, some 177 thousand Chicago
residents who identified as Black left. By 2010, Chicago residents who identified as Black or
non-Hispanic white were represented in approximately equal numbers at 32% of the population
each, with some 29% of residents identifying as Hispanic (2010 Census).
The Suburbs
Chicago’s suburbs, meanwhile, are as varied as they are sprawling. While most North and
Northwest suburbs have remained primarily white with smaller Asian and Latinx populations,
the South and Southwest suburbs are checkered with a mix of African American, Latinx, white,

23
http://chicago.curbed.com/2014/11/18/10020344/south-sides-new-neighbor-whole-foods
24
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160528/ISSUE05/305289992/chicagos-racial-
makeup-is-changing-in-new-ways
25
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-segregation-declines-neighborhoods-change-met-
20160103-story.html
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and a few mixed communities. Like the city, the story of the suburbs is intertwined with the
region’s history of racial formation, residential segregation, and white flight. In the early 1900’s
buying suburban property was one of the only ways African Americans could escape the
inadequate and overcrowded housing supply of the Black Belt. They moved to Maywood and
Chicago Heights for industrial jobs, Evanston and Glencoe for domestic service, and owner-built
suburbs like Morgan Park and Lilydale—often braving violence as they established themselves
in many of these communities (Lewinnek, 2014).
Later, as white flight to the suburbs increased, the federal government “underwrote the
suburbanization of whites and the concentration of blacks in the city”, Chicago-based sociologist
Mary Pattillo explained in an interview with Chicago Public Media.
26
In the 1930s, the Federal
Housing Administration birthed the practice of redlining
27
by refusing to insure banks’
mortgages in neighborhoods with “inharmonious racial groups,” e.g. where Black and Brown
residents were present.
28
When these restrictive practices began to give way in the 1960s and
1970s, African Americans and Latinos began moving into previously all-white communities,
first in outer Chicago neighborhoods and then suburbs primarily in the South and West. In many
communities, after middle and upper income African American families moved in,
neighborhoods changed from all-white to all African American in a short span of years
(Goodwin, 1979; Moore, 2016; Wilson and Taub, 2006).
29

26
https://www.wbez.org/shows/curious-city/where-are-chicagos-poor-white-
neighborhoods/37e96521-d730-43b8-b645-633aab318314
27
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1050.html
28
For a discussion of redlining’s historical author and present legacy:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/racism_in_real_estate_landlor
ds_redlining_housing_values_and_discrimination.html
29
See this University of Illinois illustrated map of demographic change over time: http://gif-
explode.com/?explode=http://i.imgur.com/xZoKnTa.gif
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South Suburbs
This pattern was particularly
dramatic in Chicago’s South
Suburbs. Here, numerous
communities shifted from nearly all
white to nearly all Black in the span
of a few decades. For example, the
suburb of Matteson dropped from
84% white in 1980 to just 16%
white by 2010 (2010 Census). This
process began with inner suburbs
closer to Chicago and crept out.
Middle and upper income African
Americans moved into communities such as Dolton or Harvey. When these areas rapidly lost
their white residents, many community and commercial resources left as well (Moore, 2016).
Disinvestment led African Americans in these areas to look elsewhere for the suburban dream,
extending patterns of demographic change further South. Some of the area’s more affluent
communities, such as Flossmoor, were able to maintain a fairly even balance of Black (48%) and
white (46%) residents (2010 Census). However, actual and perceived white flight continues in
the region with many white residents now moving either further west beyond the suburbs of
Frankfurt, or South and East into parts of Indiana.
In some increasingly or majority Black suburbs, village leaders have pointed to the
phenomena of ‘retail redlining’—a practice that takes a particular toll on restaurants (South
Image Copyright, 2013, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Rector and
Visitors of the University of Virginia (Dustin A. Cable, creator)
Figure 2. Chicago’s South Suburbs (Racial Dot Map)
White population
movement
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Suburban Retail Investment Study, 2012). Leaders argue that businesses leave or refuse to come
to their communities despite residents’ comparatively high incomes and spending power. For
example, in Olympia Field, where the average annual household income is $77,000, the village
manager relayed his experiences trying to attract restaurants to his area. A restaurant official told
him they would not come to the area because, “Black folks don’t tip.”
30
In other cases, restaurant
franchises have sued their own management for refusing to expand into African American
communities (Moore, 2016, loc 1575).
Disinvestment in Black spaces has drawn residents of these areas to venture further into
“other”, often white, spaces in search of stores, restaurants, and other resources. As residents
cross boundaries of racial demarcation and tax districts, they face multiple consequences. Retail
“leakage” deprives Black communities of billions of dollars of lost spending and employment
opportunities (Moore, 2016, Loc 80). In addition, according to communication infrastructure
theory,
31
disinvestment damages the “communication action context” when residents have to
leave their area to find a decent grocery store: “The more that residents go outside of their areas
for such consumer services, the less time and opportunity they have to meet and greet each other
as fellow residents” (Ball-Rokeach, 2001). Finally, residents experience the restaurants they do
go to with this context shaping the encounter. As a result, it should not be surprising that many
African American residents report feeling unwelcome or uncomfortable, not to mention putting
themselves at greater risk of police profiling, depending on where they choose to venture for
dinner.

30
http://www.citylab.com/work/2013/04/retail-redlining-one-most-pervasive-forms-racism-left-
america/5311/
31
See Chapter 1 for more detailed discussion of communication infrastructure theory.
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Evanston
Going to dinner in the northern suburb of Evanston presents different challenges for
many residents, one that comes from being spoilt for choice. There is no shortage of restaurants
here. Evanston, which is home to Northwestern University, is regarded by many as diverse and
progressive. As of 2010, its population of 74,486 was estimated to be 66% white, 18% Black,
9% Latino of any race, 9% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 7% from multiple or other races (2010
Census).
Evanston is often compared with the western suburb of Oak Park, which also had an
influx of progressive whites in the 1960s and has similar levels of overall ethnic diversity. Oak
Park, however, employed a controversial strategy of “managed integration” in the 1960s and
1970s when adjacent neighborhoods like Austin lost nearly all their white residents through
practices of real estate blockbusting.
32
To minimize white flight, they adopted a fair housing plan
using tactics like forbidding the posting of ‘for sale’ signs, and maintaining quotas to ensure that
Blacks moving in were dispersed and not concentrated (Barr, 2014; Goodwin, 1979; McKenzie
and Ruby, 2002). This allowed the community to maintain racial, if not class, diversity.

32
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/147.html
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Evanston, meanwhile,
managed integration in a less
idealistic way. As Barr (2014)
has explained, racially
restrictive real estate practices
“contained” African
Americans on the west side of
town, “hemmed in between a
sanitary canal and railroad
tracks” (Loc 428). When
discriminatory practices
became legally prohibited
during the civil rights era, Evanston’s progressive identity somehow emerged untarnished: “Both
blacks and whites based their assumptions on the presence of the other group and prided
themselves on the degree of racial integration and progressive politics embodied in the city’s
demographics” (Loc 453). But the city-wide demographics obscured social inequities and uneven
opportunities, as noted by recent concerns raised about racial achievement gaps in Evanston
schools
33
or incidents of racial profiling and police brutality.
34

Eating across culture in Chicago
Chicagoans have a reputation for being passionate about their food—from mom and pop
Italian beef or hot dog shops, to the infamous deep dish pizza parlor, to high-end hipster venues

33
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-america-divided/education/
34
http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/evanston/news/ct-evr-evanston-man-arrested-
dashboard-video-tl-0119-20170112-story.html
Image Copyright, 2013, Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Rector and
Visitors of the University of Virginia (Dustin A. Cable, creator)
Figure 3. Evanston (Racial Dot Map)
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with carefully plated food noshed at communal
tables. In addition to the long-running Taste of
Chicago festival, the city has long been home to
numerous neighborhood festivals devoted to ribs,
tacos, tamales, wings, sausage, mole, beer, and
more. More recently, Chicago has added foodie elite
offerings such as the Bon Appétit sponsored
Chicago Gourmet festival where $300 weekend passes regularly sell out. The city also recently
began hosting the James Beard Awards, sometimes referred to as the Oscars for food. Restaurant
reviews and food trends are covered widely in Chicago newspapers, alt weeklies, local
commercial and public television shows, public radio and local podcasts, and numerous food
blogs.
In this city that likes to eat, the impulse to bridge Chicago using culture, and food in
particular, has a long history. In the 1950s, residents could participate in “brotherhood tours”
organized by the National Conference of Christians and Jews to highlight “the city’s problems of
prejudice and discrimination” and encourage an appreciation of “the differences of race, religion,
and culture.” Participants could sign up for a meal and bus tours with titles like the “Oriental
tour” or “The Negro in Chicago.” The tours were touted as opportunities to “see the inside of this
other world” by visiting restaurants, shops, and community centers—and possibly bringing home
some souvenirs (Eulenberg, 1959).
In more recent decades, Chicago initiatives have focused more on the meal as a site of
intercultural dialogue. In this respect, Chicago’s efforts sit within a larger U.S. context, where
the narrative of breaking bread has been part of America’s mythology of multiculturalism from
Figure 4. Bon Appétit tent at Chicago Gourmet. 9/24/16
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the pilgrims onward. The idea of sharing meals to reconcile racial differences can be traced most
prominently to the post-Civil War 1865 Nat Fuller Dinner in Charleston. Nat Fuller, a former
slave, became one of Charleston’s most illustrious chefs. Only two months after Charleston
surrendered to the Union, he organized a banquet inviting Black and white elites to celebrate the
end of the war and the beginning of what he hoped would be a time of reconciliation.
35
While
reconciliation would prove more slippery, his efforts did offer a first encounter of intercultural
civility, at least for a sliver of the elite.
Intervention cases
Chicago Dinners
This concept of bridging cultural divides through meals has carried on in cities around the
U.S. in the decades that followed, including in Chicago. In 1995, Chicago’s Human Relations
Foundation and Chicago Community Trust responded to local and national racial tension by
developing a project that would become known as Chicago Dinners. The project percolated at a
time when polarized reactions to the OJ Simpson trial were fresh, and Sheldon Hackney’s
attempt to hold dialogues on American identity through the National Endowment for the
Humanities’ “National Conversation project” came under attack as part of the culture wars
(Segal, 2010). Chicago itself had experienced a series of hate crimes against African Americans,
the result of which had led to a “Report on Race, Ethnic and Religious Tensions in Chicago,”
and the creation of the Human Relations Foundation in 1990.
36
Leaders from the Human

35
In 2015, to mark the anniversary of the dinner, a revival was held, complete with reenactments
of historic guests and reinterpretation of historic foods by contemporary esteemed Southern
chefs. This meal followed a local police killing and just preceded the Charleston church shooting
of nine African Americans—including one of the dinner’s guests. It was subsequently followed
by a number of additional reconciliation dinners held across the South.
http://www.southernfoodways.org/gravy/a-charleston-feast-for-reconciliation-gravy-ep-17/
36
https://clinton4.nara.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/Practices/pp_19980804.4072.html
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Relations Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust, Clarence Wood who was African
American and Bruce Newman who was white, had themselves struggled to talk with each other
about issues of race following a trip to South Africa. In response, Wood and Newman set out to
find a way to make “what was abnormal, normal” –to provide opportunities in a very segregated
city for residents to eat together and establish safe places for dialogue about race (Hawkins et al.,
2004, p. 242).
The resulting Chicago Dinners established a model as they held what they called a “Night
of Unity” where multiple dinners would be hosted around the city and suburbs. Dinners took
place mostly in private homes with around 10-15 guests. Hosts were usually community leaders
from various fields. Guests similarly came from relatively elite circles, as the dinners set out to
create an “intentional dialogue among peers” (Hawkins et al., 2004, p. 242), controlling the
scope of difference rather than trying to tackle issues of class as well as race. Terri Johnson, who
conducted much of the organizing and logistics, later described the process as akin to planning
“100 wedding receptions” on the same day.
37
Each dinner was engineered to ensure that groups
were diverse but also that participants were comfortable going to the home and neighborhood
they were assigned to. The first dinner on November 28, 1995 had 500 participants at 71 dinners,
and the second the following April had more than 850 participants (Chicago Tribune, 1996). The
project hosted an estimated 4,000 Chicagoans over three years,
38
and more still when it later
shifted to the management of the Jane Adams Hull House.

37
Terri Johnson, speech to Diversity Dinners Kick Off Breakfast, 1/30/16
38
https://clinton4.nara.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/Practices/pp_19980804.4072.html
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The dinner conversations themselves were lightly facilitated, usually by whomever was
hosting. Johnson explained they were trying to avoid the experience feeling like a meeting with
flipcharts:
We wanted the breaking bread phenomenon because we wanted to normalize the
interaction. And we recognized that part of our problem is that we don’t know each other.
We don’t talk to each other. We don’t socialize with each other. If we have the
opportunity to work with people, at the end of the day. …You know what happens when
you get on a train or a bus in Chicago.
39
You know there’s a very clear dividing line
about who lives where. So what should be natural is not.
40

At the same time, the ideal Chicago Dinner sought intentional dialogue that did not avoid issues
of race. Conversations aimed to create opportunities for participants “to get comfortable with
discomfort” and to recognize “that any honest conversation about race and racism is going to be
uncomfortable.” Johnson recalled some intense and heated moment, but maintained these were
productive: “It can be civil and it can be authentic. But it can’t be easy. Cause if it’s easy, then
we’re not really talking.”
Participants, especially when the dinners first started, were curated and consisted mostly
of people who self-identified as progressive on matters of race. As a Chicago Tribune editorial at
the time pointed out, “Guest lists have been notably light on, for example, white ethnics from the
city's Bungalow Belt, people who need to be engaged in a racial dialogue” (Chicago Tribune,
1996). However, Johnson argued the critique of preaching to the choir was a misnomer.
Describing the participants, she explained that while many self-identified as ready for a “racism
401 conversation” many actually needed a remedial-level discussion:
Everybody thought of themselves as saved. Right, like this is not my problem. This is
everybody else’s problem. Now, would the people who were sitting in the room agree?
Not always. (laughs) Would the things that came out of their mouths support those ideas

39
Chicago is infamous for having certain subway and bus lines where riders will shift from all or
almost all Black to all or almost all white over the course of a few stops.
40
Terri Johnson, author interview 9/16/15
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of who they were? Frequently not. Did white privilege, male privilege, all that stuff play
itself out? Of course. Were people shocked that they got called on that stuff? Yep.
41

Johnson explained that the gap between how participants perceived themselves and what
their actions and words demonstrated was amplified by the positions of power many of these
“super-privileged” participants occupied. These were members of an elite who were not
accustomed to being challenged, and many were challenged at these dinners. When elite white
participants shared a table with Black participants of similar socio-economic standing and levels
of cultural capital, and heard their experiences of racism and discrimination, according to
Johnson, they were forced to face realities of race and privilege in a way that was harder to
dismiss and could lead to self-questioning and growth:
I think there were lots of ah-ha moments. But I also recognize that for every person that is
comfortable with an ah-ha moment there are probably ten who are scared to death by it.
Because the ah-hah moment in this case challenges who you are and who you believe in.
And it also challenges what you think is really normal.
42

The dinners, she explained, were really just a place to start—a place to safely practice sharing
their emotions and, critically, to listen.
In retrospect, Johnson acknowledged that one of Chicago Dinners’ challenges was in its
struggle to push forward discussions that went beyond a focus on interpersonal relations and the
narrative that “as long as we can get along… we’ll be ok.”
43
Talking about systems, and
dismantling systems, was more difficult and “harder to get your arms around.”
44
The group tried
to build towards such conversations with some special larger group discussions on systemic
issues such as education or criminal justice, and with some groups sharing reading materials

41
Ibid.
42
Ibid
43
Terri Johnson, speech to Diversity Dinners Kick Off Breakfast, 1/30/16
44
Terri Johnson, author interview 9/16/15
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prior to meeting. Returning to the choir metaphor, Johnson argued that the choir needed to
rehearse to be stronger and to ensure it was able to sing the same hymn. It was less about going
after individual racists, and more having a strong choir to work for racial justice and oppose
harmful initiatives. Had their choir been stronger in the 90s, she suggested, they may have been
able to avoid being “bamboozled” by the get-tough-on-crime rhetoric that led to the introduction
of policies that would cement a racist system of mass incarceration.
Despite the challenges, frustrations and limitations of Chicago Dinners, Johnson and
others attest they did leave a legacy. One former participant described how the experience of
participating in two Chicago Dinners led her to start a book club with a diverse group of women
who continue to meet periodically to discuss books by authors from diverse cultural
background—often meeting at restaurants around the region with food connected to the culture
being discussed.
45
Others went on to adapt the Chicago Dinners model to the needs of their own
communities, such as Oak Park’s Dinner & Dialogue initiative which has held occasional dinners
since 2011. Queries about the model came from other countries and parts of the U.S., in some
cases leading to long standing programs such as with the case of the Dallas Dinner Table.
46

Other contemporary projects like Chicago Community Trust’s On the Table initiative, which
invites thousands of Chicagoans to host dinners to talk about issues facing Chicago one day a
year, were inspired by Chicago Dinners even if they did not fully follow its model.
47

45
“Angela” Author interview, 2/3/16.
46
https://www.dallasdinnertable.com
47
Consultant working with On the Table. Author interview, 8/19/15. At the time of the interview
On the Table had decided not to explicitly address issues of race and racism, but rather to use the
dinners to learn about residents’ priorities more broadly—to inform the Chicago Community
Trust’s strategic planning.
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Diversity Dinners and Table Talks
Two Chicago Dinners spin-offs are examined as cases in this study—Diversity Dinners in
the South Suburbs, and Table Talks in Evanston. While the cases have very different origins and
contexts, they both have attempted to implement a similar concept of orchestrating meals with
diverse groups of strangers in private homes. While cases will be discussed in greater detail in
Chapter 4, I offer an overview of their trajectories here.
Diversity Dinners began in 1997 in the South Suburbs. Two of the founders, (now
Congresswoman) Robin Kelly and Barbara Moore, had attended a few Chicago Dinners meals.
Around the same time, the spotlight of national media descended on the South Suburbs,
culminating with a 1997 report by NBC’s Tom Brokaw “Why Can’t We Live Together.”
48
The
program focused on the village of Matteson, IL and featured images of white residents packing
up moving vans, claiming they had no problem with having African American neighbors but that
they didn’t want their property value to plummet. Kelly and Moore, who at the time worked for
the village of Park Forest and focused on community affairs, were concerned about what they
saw as media “badmouthing the region on national TV.”
49
Moore explained that they wanted to
offer a counter message that would suggest an integrated region was possible –and would
address rumors swirling about the impact of African Americans moving into adjacent
communities:
Our best marketers are our residents. And if they are unhappy and scared. And they don’t
know what’s going on in other communities, they can have very negative impressions of
neighboring communities --which is really strange. So the goal was to get to know one
another and feel better about the region. And to stabilize the region. And not to encourage
white flight.
50

48
http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbcnews-com/race-in-america-how-far-have-we-come-
294348355616
49
Barbara Moore. Author interview, 4/4/16
50
Ibid.
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Because the South Suburbs are a patchwork of communities that blend into one another, they
decided to create a regional initiative using Chicago Dinners as a model. Drawing from their
local government and community networks, they recruited hosts and guests initially from Park
Forest, Matteson, Flossmoor, Homewood, and University Park—later expanding to encompass
communities in Rich Township, and up to white flight destination communities in Indiana and
western suburbs such as Frankfurt. Diversity Dinners have subsequently been held annually in
April—usually involving around 500 people eating dinner on the same night at approximately 50
sites (mostly private homes, but also a few churches and schools).
Table Talks also used the model of Chicago Dinners, albeit indirectly. The initiative was
a pilot project of the City of Evanston, launched in January 2016 by city staff and Evanston’s
Human Relations Commission. According to the city staffer organizing the project, Table Talks
had two goals. The city sought to engage residents who were not part of the vocal minority who
usually participated in city events, at the same time the Human Relations Commission sought to
improve connections between residents through discussions about issues of equity and
diversity.
51
The series of meals were initiated after learning about Oak Park’s Dinner and
Dialogue
52
project, which had been inspired by Chicago Dinners. The city staffer recruited
residents using a variety of city listservs and websites. Many residents responded to the call so a
waiting list was created for those who could not be scheduled into the initial dinners. While the
city had planned a series of three pilot dinners to test out the model, the project was ended after
only two dinners. The city staff person managing the project left his position, and the Human

51
“Alberto” Author interview, 1/29/16
52
http://www.oak-park.us/our-community/community-relations/dinner-dialogue
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Relations Commission was not able to maintain the operation (this will be explored in more
detail in Chapter 4).

Meal Sharing
A third case was selected as it similarly involved diverse groups of residents eating in
private homes, but did not share an explicit mission to facilitate dialogue on issues of race. Meal
Sharing, an online platform to organize meals in private homes, was started by a founder who
emphasized the platform’s potential for community-building and cultural exchange while
traveling or within home cities. While meal shares often brought diverse groups together,
conversations organically fluctuated and there was no guarantee race or difference would be
discussed (and the diverse composition of guests was not controlled as with the other cases).
While there are meal shares in cities around the world, the company, which started in 2013, is
based in Chicago. In Chicago, meals are offered by hosts sporadically, with some regular hosts
cooking meals on a regular basis. The frequency of meals has fluctuated over the years—with a
very active community when the site first started, to dips in meal offerings when an old host
moves or has a change in life circumstances. During the time of this study, meals tended to be
offered several times a month. Meals were held at a range of locations throughout the city,
though there were far fewer meals in South and West side neighborhoods.
Overview of the Dissertation
To further situate this project’s exploration of eating in Chicagoland, the first chapter
reviews select literature and defines key concepts (such as food as intercultural communication,
culinary imaginaries, etc.), setting out the framework for this study. The next chapter examines
the methods used during the study.
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Chapter three focuses on findings regarding participants’ food practices and culinary
maps. It outlines a typology of culinary imaginaries, explores their significance, and the extent
that they are ethnically-bounded.
The fourth chapter focuses on the food and dialogue projects, Diversity Dinners and
Table Talks, as well Meal Sharing. It examines participants’ motivations, and the nature of
interactions taking place. The fifth chapter explores residents’ communication networks and
variables affecting their willingness to discuss contentious issues like the Black Lives Matter
movement and political rhetoric on race and immigration across boundaries of difference.
Finally, the concluding chapter will review the significance of findings as well as
limitations and needs for additional research. It will reference emerging initiatives, including
several responding to issues raised by the Trump administration, that combine food activities
with dialogue and/or organizing around social justice issues. Drawing from the experiences of
the cases in this study, it will conclude by reflecting on the implications for future intervention
possibilities involving food.

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CHAPTER 1
Culinary imaginaries and communication across difference

Taking stock of Chicagoland, and all of its bodily woes, why start with the region’s
stomach? This dissertation asks what can be learned from examining not so much the content of
Chicago denizen’s stomachs as how they talk about food, and what happens when they talk to
each other over food. To answer these questions, this chapter first looks at literatures and
theoretical frameworks which have helped guide this investigation, referencing back to the cases
under consideration for context. It begins by making the argument for why food has a place on
this table of inquiry, and how food often becomes entangled with race, power, and place. It then
looks at frameworks for understanding communication across difference, including concepts
about intercultural conflict and associational ties, everyday intercultural interactions, and
communication ecologies. Finally, it looks at literature that examines approaches to dialogue on
race and difference—both in terms of what is discussed and how it is discussed.
Food communicates culture
Food tells stories. And often these stories reveal a great deal about the societies and
cultures in which they are told. It was Roland Barthes who most famously declared food to be a
“system of communication” (Barthes, 1961). He spoke of the power of food to communicate
meaning: “this item of food sums up and transmits a situation; it constitutes an information; it
signifies” (Barthes, 1961, p. 24). Food, he argued, functioned like grammar, and the meaning of
food items shifted as social values shifted. Claude Levi-Strauss also spoke of food as language:
“the cooking of a society is a language in which it unconsciously translates its structure—or else
resigns itself, still unconsciously, to revealing its contradictions” (Levi-Strauss, in Counihan &
Van Esterik, 2008, p.43). Contemporary scholars have continued to explore the power of “food
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talk” to communicate beyond the plate (Ferguson, 2014): “We talk through food to speak of love
and desire, devotion and disgust, aspirations and anxieties, ideas and ideologies, joys and
judgments” (Loc 177).
Crucially, food has been used to communicate who is considered “us” versus “other.”
Our insider status can be established through our knowledge of “vernacular foodways” (Jonas,
2013), or our eating habits and taboos (Douglas in Counihan & Van Esterik, 2008; Gabaccia,
1998). In the U.S., Donna Gabaccia (1998) outlined how defining what was considered
“American food” has long been a way to define which immigrant groups are seen to belong to
the larger whole. At the same time, preserving immigrant foodways offered avenues for
communities to preserve identity. In some marginalized cultures, iconic foods have been used as
litmus tests to determine insider status. Shirley Tate (2003) described how rice and peas and
chicken had become a way of performing Black British “authenticity,” whereas Psyche
Williams-Forson (2006) detailed the role of chicken in how African Americans negotiated
definitions of gender, race, and class.
Others have adapted Bourdieu’s “food space” typology, which maps how “taste” in food
is shaped by the intermingling of both cultural and economic capital, as well as other factors
such as gender and time (Bourdieu, 1979). For example, anthropologist Richard Wilk (2012)
designed a matrix to show how food “loves” and “hates” could solidify cultural divides (i.e.
lobster-loving whites v. eel-loving African Americans in 1960s Connecticut). Bourdieu’s broader
reflection on how food communicates cultural boundaries continues to resonate. He outlined,
“taste…unites and separates” but is most closely concerned with difference: “tastes are perhaps
first and foremost distastes" (Bourdieu, 1979, p.57).
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Sidney Mintz (2003) also acknowledged the potential for food-based insults of national
or ethnic groups (“Krauts”, “Eskimos” etc.) to offer “strikingly convenient condensed symbols of
identity conflict or division” (p.32). These symbols can even lead to violence, particularly when
religion is involved. Mintz cited historical examples from Spain and India, but contemporary
parallels abound—from Indian Muslims killed for rumors of eating beef,
53
to more symbolic
violence such as a right wing French mayor’s declaration to stop the growth of kebab restaurants
in a small French town.
54
Food communicating culture can have a dark side, particularly when
food is used to define cultural “others”.
Food, power, and claims to place
As the above allusions to violence and class suggest, part of food’s work communicating
culture is interwoven with communicating power (Mintz, 1985; 1996). From who produces the
food, to who gets economic capital from it, to who gets to consume it, as Williams-Forson
(2006) argued, “food demonstrates the various ways that power operates in our lives” (loc 884).
One way power is wielded through food is through claims of cultural “authenticity,”
which must be considered with an eye to privilege, power imbalances, and resistance.
Authenticity, a word often used in quotations and with ambivalence, has infected the vocabulary
of many of us privileged enough to make choices about food because it has a social function.
Josee Johnston and Shyon Baumann (2010, 2015) define authenticity as a socially constructed
and relational concept, where “food is understood as authentic when it has geographic
specificity, is “simple”, has a personal connection, can be linked to a historical tradition, or has

53
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/india-muslim-hindu-beef-akhlaq/409405/
54
This story also presented the possibility of food as resistance—opponents to the mayor’s Islamophobia initially
proposed an international kebab festival in the town:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/03/a-french-mayor-ranted-against-kebabs-his-
critics-retaliated-by-declaring-an-international-kebab-festival/
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“ethnic” connections” (Johnston & Baumann, 2010, p. 70). On the one side, using words like
“authentic” allow “foodies” to communicate that they are not old-school food snobs. But
accessing authenticity requires cultural capital. You must first know what food counts as
authentic, have the time to seek it out, and possess “a set of cognitive and aesthetic skills that
generally accompany higher education and income levels” (p.94).
When food enthusiasts or culinary tourists go in search of “authentic” food, they risk
alienating both themselves and the person on the “other” side of the cultural boundary. As Lisa
Heldke (2005) pointed out, “There is no such thing as a cuisine untouched by ‘outside
influences,’ and if what we really seek is a cuisine ‘untouched by the influences of people such
as myself,’ then we ought to question the motives underlying our demand” (p.388). A number of
Asian American scholars and documentarians have examined the problematic nature of
restrictive conceptions of authenticity in diaspora communities, and how food can challenge
these while also bridging linguistic and generational divides (Ku, 2014; Lee, G., 2015; Lee, J.,
2008). However, troubling authenticity is not the same as suggesting there is no meaning or
value connected to cultural products. Cultural appropriation that strips voice away from the
“other” by adopting and adapting food associated with them can still be experienced as hurtful
(Tam, 2015; Salinas, 2014; Tipton-Martin, 2015), particularly given histories of racism, food
shaming, theft of cultural property, and unequal power relations.
Debates over authenticity can have material importance because they often bleed into
claims to place. Arjun Appadurai (1986), argued that while authenticity chased a timeless fiction
or norm of what something “ought to be,” it seemed “always to emerge just after its subject
matter has been significantly transformed” (p.25). Writing on gentrification, Sharon Zukin
(2010) echoed a similar sentiment: “Claiming authenticity becomes prevalent at a time when
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identities are unstable” (loc104). Zukin argued that it doesn’t matter if authenticity is not real as
it “becomes a tool of power” (p.3) and can be used as “a cultural form of power over space” (loc
117).
In multiethnic communities experiencing demographic change, food and food spaces can
function as battlegrounds for contesting cultural ownership of an area. This was illustrated by the
case of a Californian ‘ethnoburb’ that shifted from mostly white, to roughly 60% Asian, 30%
Latina/o, and 10% white. Here, the transition from an “American” to an Asian American grocery
store incited bitter rhetoric about the Chinese community “taking over”, and food discourse at
times included coded speech or dog whistling referencing community change (Wenzel, 2016).
Theorists who have looked more broadly at the intersection of race, ethnicity, and space in the
context of demographic change, have also noted that conversations about food and food spaces
are often layered with exclusionary histories, assumptions of racial hierarchies, and concerns
about power and displacement (Brown-Sarancino, 2009; Cheng, 2013; Saito, 1998). Depending
on the power dynamic between old-time residents and newcomers, food associated with either
group may be critiqued for more than its flavor profile.
Even when food spaces are shared by multiple ethnic groups, understanding between
groups is not guaranteed (Barbas, 2003; Lum, 2013; Sen, 2013; Wise, 2009). In To Live and
Dine in LA (2015) Josh Kun described how restaurants have historically been places where
cultures and communities “bump up against each other” (p. 49), while at the same time
maintaining a “cultural boundary”: “fried chicken and taco combo plates connecting
communities virtually while keeping them apart physically. Culinary integration and social
segregation lived side by side” (p114). Oliver Wang (2013) similarly pointed out how
contemporary instances of food truck fusion and accompanying convivial crowds of strangers
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can obscure more substantive issues of inequalities: “harmony between flavors can belie the
often discordant reality of urban social relations” (Loc 1901).
Communication across difference
As these cases illustrate, bringing people into proximity in food spaces cannot be
assumed to lead to meaningful intercultural exchange. But examining how people navigate
difference through food and food spaces offers opportunities to examine communication and
other theoretical frameworks, and explore questions regarding the ideal of intercultural
bridging—and whether it can always be assumed to be a positive thing.
Everyday difference and conviviality
For residents of many multiethnic cities, encountering difference is an inevitable part of
life. Numerous scholars have grappled with what this everyday navigation of difference means,
including encounters that take place around food. UK cultural studies scholar, Paul Gilroy
(2004), put forth the concept of conviviality—“the process of cohabitation and interaction that
have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life” (p.xi), or more succinctly, “living
together in real time” (Gilroy, 2006, p. 6). Gilroy said conviviality was not meant to “describe
the absence of racism or the triumph of tolerance” (Gilroy, 2004, p.xi). But it was a recognition
that in certain contexts “problems melted away in the face of a kind of clankingly obvious sense
of human sameness” (Gilroy, 2006, p. 6). In a 2006 speech, he explained how what he was
seeing in his own neighborhood contrasted sharply with the “clash of civilizations” rhetoric he
had been hearing at the time:
“It seemed to me that very often, at the interpersonal level rather than structural level, the
consequences of racism were banal and ordinary. …They didn’t always get along with
their neighbors, but they overcame those difficulties. I wanted to give the fact of that kind
of creative and intuitive capacity among ordinary people, who manage those tensions,
some sort of significance” (Gilroy, 2006, p. 6).

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Conviviality, though, has not been without its critics. Among them, Sarah Ahmed offered
a stinging appraisal of what she called ‘happy multiculturalism’. She argued that conviviality ran
the risk of promoting a “nostalgic narrative” in which happiness was the “glue” that made
communities cohesive (Ahmed, 2008, p.122). She was concerned that the burden of facilitating
happiness was unevenly levied on the shoulders of migrants or minorities. It became their
responsibility to interact with the dominant majority: “Integration becomes what promises
happiness (if only we mixed, we would be happy), by converting bad feelings (read un-integrated
migrants) into good feelings (read integrated migrants)” (p.132). She also pointed out important
considerations about conviviality in shared multiethnic spaces—particularly how “affects pass
between bodies” (p.125). Interacting in a multiethnic space, she argued, one must account for the
histories and feelings of alienation or entitlement residents may bring to their encounters in
multiethnic spaces.
While Ahmed’s critique problematized simplistic notions of conviviality, the concept of
conviviality has many variations. Conviviality sympathizers Amanda Wise & Selvaraj
Velayutham (2013) responded to Ahmed by acknowledging the dangers of “glossing over of
tensions and racisms”: “Social relations are never entirely rosy, nor entirely negative and thus the
challenge is to comprehend the full range of interactions, patterns, behaviors and meanings at
work, and the interconnections between ‘happy’ and ‘hard’ forms of coexistence” (Wise &
Velayutham, 2013, p.14). Using case examples from Sydney and Singapore, Wise and
Velayutham outlined how conviviality could be used as an analytical tool to understand what is
working in multiethnic communities. They focused on three areas: 1) “spatial orderings”—which
account for the built environment and “furnishings” in it, 2) “connecting and bridging work”—
including the interpersonal work and intercultural gifts, and 3) “intercultural habitus”—with a
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focus on internalized habits of cultural awareness and language practices (Wise & Velayutham,
2013). By exploring people’s ordinary encounters, Wise found: “a world of ‘everyday’ middle-
and working-class cosmopolitans who were ‘doing community’ across difference at work,
between neighbors, in their sports teams, or in their kids schools” (Wise, 2009, p. 98). For
example, in her ethnographic work with elderly Anglos who frequented an ethnically diverse
food court, she observed: “These are spaces characterized not so much by ‘great leaps forward’
in ‘appreciating difference’, but more about incremental changes in disposition and the opening
up of boundaries” (p.107).
Another interpretation of conviviality is offered by Ash Amin. Amin has called
conviviality a “form of solidarity with space” (Amin, 2008, p.18). He sets himself apart from
Gilroy and complicates understandings of conviviality which focus on everyday moments of
difference:
Habitual contact in itself, is no guarantor of cultural exchange. It can entrench group
animosities and identities, through repetitions of gender, class, race, and ethnic practices.
Cultural change in these circumstances is likely if people are encouraged to step out of
their routine environment, into other everyday spaces that function as sites of
unnoticeable cultural questioning or transgression (Amin, 2002, p. 969).

For Amin the most interesting possibilities emerged from what he called “micro-publics” or
spaces of “cultural displacement” where “engagement with strangers in a common activity
disrupts easy labelling of the stranger as enemy and initiates new attachments” (p. 970). He
referenced “moments of mobility and transition” and “threshold space” such as college,
“unsteady social spaces” such as music clubs, and more radical cultural confrontation through
participatory Forum Theater that can involve role-exchange (p. 971). Amin has advocated for an
“agonistic public culture” where disagreements can be discussed transparently in multiple
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encounters and where the goal is not a unitary sense of place, but rather spaces that support
multiple publics (p.973).
Communication infrastructures and ecologies
In the quest for a resilient multiethnic society, other have argued that everyday
encounters alone are insufficient. In a study of Hindu-Muslim violence in India, political
scientist Ashutosh Varshney (2002) found that the best predictor of whether a community would
maintain stability in moments of crisis (and in the face of “attempts by politicians to polarize
ethnic communities”, here meaning Hindus and Muslims) was whether its civil society had
significant associational ties that crossed religious lines. While everyday interethnic interactions
(eating together, children playing with each other, etc.) also made a positive contribution to
stability, these were less predictive than ties such as integrated trade unions, book clubs, sports
clubs, or other organized groups—in part because the latter established communication networks
that could be called upon in moments of crisis. When an incident occurred in one neighborhood,
people could call their group’s co-members to check on their safety, squash rumors, etc.
Communication infrastructure theory (Ball-Rokeach, 2001; Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006)
has also examined the question of what ingredients make communities more likely to be
cohesive and engaged. According to CIT, local storytelling networks (STN) are comprised of a
combination of interpersonal conversations and networks, geo-ethnic media, and community
organizations. When residents link to these storytelling nodes, and these nodes are linked to each
other, they offer the potential to circulate a common story of a shared community—akin to
Anderson’s (1991) concept of an imagined community. CIT researchers have found that
residents’ connection to the STN can predict higher levels of belonging, collective efficacy, and
civic participation (Ball-Rokeach, Kim, & Matei, 2001; Kim & Ball-Rokeach, 2006).
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However, CIT research in ethnically heterogeneous communities which have experienced
demographic change (including Alhambra, CA and South LA), has found that storytelling
networks are often ethnically-bounded. That is, residents may be well connected to other
residents who look and sound like them through ethnic media, churches, or community groups,
but they rarely are exposed to communication resources which would allow them to access a
common understanding of an inclusive multiethnic community. For example, Broad, Gonzalez
and Ball-Rokeach (2013) examined relations between African American and Latino communities
in South Los Angeles, finding that while the combination of interpersonal contact and connection
to the storytelling network influenced intergroup perceptions—at times connecting to “bad
stories” in ethnically-bounded networks led to negative perceptions of the “other” ethnic group.
Likewise, research in Alhambra has found that connection to Chinese language ethnic media can
have a negative impact on residents’ civic engagement outcomes (Chen et al., 2013). The content
of stories being told in communication nodes matters—if stories focus on the interests of only
one group and portray the ‘other’ groups in a less than flattering light, it is unsurprising that
residents who process such stories are less likely to form a holistic and inclusive understanding
of their community. All too often, residents lack access to communication resources like local
media and organizations that attempt to play an intercultural bridging role.
Communication infrastructure theory research takes an ecological approach by looking at
a combination of communication resources and situating storytelling in place. In its theoretical
model, the storytelling network (STN) is located in a communication action context (CAC). The
CAC includes environmental factors which may facilitate or constrain residents from connecting
to the STN—for example safety concerns about a gang-associated park might prevent a mother
from taking her child to a community sports activity, while improved public transit might enable
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a resident to go to a meeting at a community organization. The CAC also includes gathering
spaces that can act as communication “hotspots” (discursive spaces) and “comfort zones”
(institutions or spaces to which residents feel connected) (Villanueva, et al., 2016; Wilkin et al.,
2011). Through ground-level mapping of communities, researchers have identified places such
as barber shops, clinics, and cafes, where residents of diverse backgrounds meet and discuss
issues affecting their community and daily life. However, in multiethnic communities, residents
can be co-present in hot spots or comfort zones but still connect to ethnically-bounded STN—for
example, they may be sharing community stories with fellow residents at a local restaurant, but
have no interaction with diners at the restaurant who come from “other” cultural backgrounds
(Wenzel, 2016). While communication infrastructure theory has often been used for engaged
research and interventions to strengthen community storytelling networks—with promising civic
outcomes, it is less clear that interventions have been able to form sustained bridging storytelling
networks in multiethnic communities.
Coming from a communication infrastructure theory tradition, it is also possible to look
at individuals’ and groups’ communication ecologies, a concept that offers particular value for
this study. According to Ball-Rokeach et al. (2012), people assemble networks of
communication resources to gain information and pursue goals. For example, if someone wanted
a cookie he remembered eating as a child, he may call his sister, who then refers him to a
cookbook or a website. If the recipe looks too difficult, he may then look on Yelp to find a
bakery where he can buy it. Meanwhile, a new refugee from Congo, who does not have access to
the internet, may be looking for a vegetable needed to cook a dish from home. She may ask
someone at the refugee resettlement center, who then refers her to a Puerto Rican grocery store
in her neighborhood. These networks of communication resources are put together within an
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individual or groups’ communication environment which shape what resources are available.
The context in which people live and the goals they have can lead residents to encounter a range
of communication resources ranging from media to interpersonal interactions or organized
groups.
Strategic Togetherness
The work of Myria Georgiou (2016) brings together conviviality’s emphasis on everyday
difference with a focus on the critical role played by communication infrastructure. Through
empirical work in the multiethnic North London neighborhood of Harringay/Green Lanes,
Georgiou has highlighted the role played by local communication resources—both face-to-face
communication and local and ethnic media. From her observations, Georgiou put forth the
concept of “convivial separation”— the idea that living separately in proximity is not the same as
segregation (Georgiou, 2016). She argued that “physical proximity combined with sustained and
dynamic communication infrastructures enable convivial separation and moments of strategic
togetherness across difference” (Georgiou, unpublished abstract).
Georgiou has suggested that conviviality can be thought of as a spectrum with three main
levels (Georgiou, unpublished paper, p. 23). At the lowest level is “a politics of civility through
Othering”, or respectful indifference, characterized by a lack of violent conflict but little more
than accidental encounters in public space. The next level is “a politics of civility through
negotiation of We-ness and Otherness”. In this condition, residents may seek each other out and
acknowledge “‘others’ right to the city”, but collaborative engagement is ephemeral and falls
short of a sense of solidarity or “mutual care”. The highest level of conviviality, a kind of ethical
conviviality, requires “a politics of civic engagement and solidarity”. At this level, there exists a
sense of commitment to a shared community and affective publics can “occasionally push the
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limits of the unequal and divided city” (p.23). Georgiou argued that a community can be
characterized primarily by one of these levels, but aspects of multiple levels may simultaneously
be present among certain segments of the community and emerge at critical moments. Overall,
for a community to have convivial separation without segregation, there must be opportunities
for regular and unforced communication in public spaces, and access to multiple communication
networks through communication infrastructure (p.25).
This last point offers a constructive place of intersection between CIT and Georgiou’s
interpretation of conviviality. While convivial separation is not necessarily interventionist, its
way of diagnosing and characterizing a community may offer value for those who do wish to
move communities in a direction of greater inclusivity, mutual care, and solidarity. Both the
traditions of CIT and convivial separation accept as a normative goal the ideal of community
with a shared commitment to a diverse whole paired with respect for difference and critical
recognition of inequalities—what is essentially Georgiou’s third level of conviviality. The
question becomes what kinds of interventions might facilitate residents in moving in this
direction and how would they account for local context and power structures?
Dialogue and race
As this dissertation explores interventions that undertake intercultural dialogue and
communication through culture, I turn next to how racial power structures shape attempts at
bridging. I examine how dialogue can be analyzed with an understanding of how contemporary
discourse on race is constructed and coded, how narratives of difference circulate and are
negotiated, potential barriers to meaningful dialogue, strategies, and possible outcomes.
‘Colorblind’ ideology and coded speech
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Post Jim Crow, attempts to convene dialogue on race in the U.S. take place within a
racial ‘common sense’ that generally does not permit overt bigotry, but nonetheless is fashioned
to preserve structural privileges and de facto racial hierarchies. Many scholars have pointed to
the rise of colorblindness—a versatile ideology that suggests that given our universal humanity,
race no longer matters and should play no role in legal, social, or cultural decision-making:
Much as Jim Crow racism served as the glue for defending a brutal and overt system of
racial oppression in the pre–Civil Rights era, color-blind racism serves today as the
ideological armor for a covert and institutionalized system in the post–Civil Rights era.
(Bonilla-Silva, 2006, p.3)

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2006) argued that colorblind racism had four central frames: abstract
liberalism, naturalization, cultural racism, and minimization of racism (p.28). These frames are
used to obscure the operation of structural racism. Omi and Winant (1994) argued that neoliberal
individualism has been used to construct “code words”, or what Lopez (2014) has called racial
“dog whistling”, to substitute for overt racism—e.g. references to welfare handouts or getting
tough on crime. As Michelle Alexander has argued, this “colorblind public consensus” on anti-
crime measures has been manipulated to create a new racial “caste system” (Alexander, 2012)
while creating more palatable language.
In the context of analyzing dialogue interventions on race, this suggests attention must be
paid to how racial hegemony is indirectly expressed in participants’ speech. At the same time,
care will be taken to avoid a simplistic application of what Hartigan (2005) calls a “hermeneutics
of suspicion” when analyzing the comments of white participants. Hartigan argues that while
reading whites’ comments “against the grain” can be useful in revealing unconscious racial
sentiments, it can be:
…deaf to efforts by white participants to make sense of situations that are more
ambiguous or complicated than antiracists either realize or admit. I suggest that if
antiracists are able to listen a bit more attentively to what whites are actually saying, and
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do more than simply regard their responses as smoke screens hiding racist intentions and
beliefs, they can gain a critical purchase on whites’ real-life situations and thereby more
effectively engage whites’ racial perceptions and judgments (loc 598).

To go beyond a game of racial “gotcha” and genuinely explore attempts at constructive
conversation, this more attentive listening approach may be valuable.
Colorblind racism, space and place
The ideology of colorblindness can also skew conversations and imaginings about place,
particularly in a city as segregated as Chicago. Bonilla-Silva (2006) argued that one of the
frames of colorblind racism, naturalization, was often used as a justification for how the post-
Civil Rights residential segregation of African Americans just “naturally” happened as people
“gravitate towards likeness” (p. 28). This of course conflicts with findings by numerous analysts
of “purposeful institutional arrangements” responsible for racial isolation in American cities
(Massey and Denton, 1993, p. 2). George Lipsitz (2011) offered further explanation of how
colorblind ideology was used to obscure the structural nature of residential segregation, and the
wider ways race structures geographies and lives. He described how race intersects with place to
create a “white spatial imaginary”:
“White identity in the United States is place bound. It exists and persists because
segregated neighborhoods and segregated schools are nodes in a network of practices that
skew opportunities and life chances along racial lines. Because of practices that racialize
space and spatialize race, whiteness is learned and legitimated, perceived as natural,
necessary, and inevitable.” (Lipsitz, 2011, loc 88)

In racialized spaces, white homeowners can present themselves as “racially unmarked” as they
make choices about where to live according to financial logic that just happens to coincide with
white privilege (loc 490). Lipsitz detailed how racism is mapped onto “seemingly race-neutral
urban sites contain hidden racial assumptions and imperatives”. The design and construction of
places like shopping malls, sports arenas, and highways are the subject of political maneuvering
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that often follow “the racial logics of hostile privatism and defensive localism” (loc 226). Lipsitz
warned that inhabiting the white spatial imaginary infects a kind of cultural sickness on those
who subscribe to it due to the moral failings of racism. It prioritizes “individual escape” over
“democratic deliberations” and damages the long-term interests of whites (loc 390).

Nice white people
As critical race scholars have argued, racial systems are maintained by power, not racist
hatred: “The widespread and mistaken belief that racial animus is necessary for the creation and
maintenance of racialized systems of social control is the most important reason that we, as a
nation, have remained in deep denial” (Alexander, 2012, p.183). The powerhouse of racist
systems, Alexander held, had less to do with the smaller number of overt bigots, and more to do
with the “many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of
their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners.” It was these
white people who nevertheless voted for segregation, often with benign, if paternalistic, intent
(p183). Their contemporary equivalents may be equally “nice” white people, who have
continued to subscribe to Lipsitz’s (2011) “white spatial imaginary” and have unthinkingly
employed Bonilla-Silva’s (2006) frames of colorblind ideology, possibly voting for or excusing
the white supremacist rhetoric of politicians such as Donald Trump.
Given this, the question of how an honest conversation about race can occur becomes
even more complicated. It is not simply a matter of civility, or even overcoming individual
prejudices or white people having friends of color. As activist Tim Wise acknowledged, “Even
when a white person is closely tied to African Americans, that white person is often living in an
entirely different world from that of their friends, though we rarely realize it” (Wise, 2011, p35).
In fact, some critical whiteness thinkers, such as Shannon Sullivan, have warned that
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interpersonal relationships can be problematic, and at times, a misdirection of focus: “Solidarity
with people of color does not necessarily depend on white people’s intimacy or closeness with
people of color, and too quickly seeking that intimacy can be a way for white people to avoid the
more difficult task of grappling with their whiteness” (Sullivan, 2014, p. 157). Sullivan instead
advocated that white people “turn to themselves to clean up their own house” (p.145) through
efforts like talking with their children about race without using colorblind rhetoric, and trying to
strive for what she calls a “critical form of self-love” that aims to transform whiteness (p.162).
Talking (and arguing) about race
A number of white anti-racism activists, like Wise, or more recent groups such as
Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), do focus on workshops and interventions for groups of
white U.S. residents. However, there may also be value to uncover from initiatives which have
attempted to convene intergroup discussions on race. How do such dialogue efforts handle
narratives of universal sameness or difference? And does it matter if a group is closer on a
continuum towards polite agreement versus lively debate?
Political scientist Katherine Walsh’s Talking about Race (2008) showcased participant
observation of voluntary discussion circles (organized by a third party) from several Midwestern
cities. Walsh concluded that the dialogues demonstrated a “practical politics” rather than a
politics of unity or difference. Walsh noted that many of the participants came to the table with
the understanding that “in order to deal with difference we have to focus on unity” (p.7). This led
many to use universalist terms like “colorblindness” and “the human race” (p.109). Over the
course of the groups, some participants expressed ambivalence and resistance and asserted
difference through storytelling, leading others who had used colorblind ideology frames to
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reconsider why their fellow participants who shared their racial justice goals “also saw a value in
paying attention to difference” (p140).
Walsh drew from political theorist Danielle Allen’s (2006) concept of “political
friendship”:
Friendship begins in the recognition that friends have a shared life—not a ‘common’ nor
an identical life—only one with common events, climates, built-environments, fixations
of the imagination, and social structures. Each friend will view all these phenomena
differently, but they are not the less shared for that (Allen, 2006, Loc 208).

Allen put forth the concept of “wholeness” as opposed to “oneness” (Allen, 2006, p.19), which
makes room for the “democratic treatment of disagreement” (p.63).
Allen and Walsh’s emphasis on the potential value in contentious debate also resonates
with the concept of agonism presented by cultural studies scholars such as Ash Amin (2002):
“Agonism may well leave conflicts and disagreements unresolved, which is the nature of
bringing distant and inimical subjects together, but its strength lies in making transparent
reasons for resentment and misunderstanding as well as the pathos of the aggrieved, so
that future encounters (essential in an agonistic public culture) can build on a better
foundation” (p.973).

In the case of Walsh’s discussion participants, conflicts at times made the ideology of
colorblindness more transparent. These moments revealed how well-meaning universalisms or
assumptions of racial progress that minimized racism (usually voiced by white people) clashed
with experiences with discrimination relayed by people of color. Sharing such stories in groups
that may otherwise be shielded from them due to segregation encouraged participants to “pay
attention to difference” (p.236).
Cultural connection or appropriation?
Using cultural products such as food to facilitate dialogue around difference presents both
opportunities and risks. The connections formed through culture has been a rich site of theorizing
for George Lipsitz. Lipsitz’s (2011) concept of the “Black spatial imaginary” suggested culture,
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particularly produced in Black spaces, offers opportunities for “envisioning and enacting more
decent, dignified, humane, and egalitarian social relations for everyone” (Lipsitz, 2011, loc 88).
At the same time, he critiqued culturally appropriative projects that may have been “well
motivated” but “hide the construction of ‘whiteness’” and failed to “examine their own
relationship to power” (Lipsitz, 1994, p.63). Lipsitz offered some guiding questions to consider
before jumping into a “multicultural” project, including: “When does identification with the
culture of others serve escapist and irresponsible ends and when does it encourage an enhanced
understanding of one’s experiences and responsibilities?” Or “Which kinds of cross-cultural
identification advance emancipatory ends and which ones reinforce existing structures of power
and domination?” (p.56). He also clarified why culture is political: “Culture enables people to
rehearse identities, stances, and social relations not yet permissible in politics. But it also serves
as a concrete social site, a place where social relations are constructed and enacted as well as
envisioned” (p. 137). Lipsitz argued that culture itself, including commercial culture, offered
potential to act as intercultural communication and reconcile power divides, though it always
also carried the risk of creating “new sources of misunderstanding” (p. 161).
Conclusion: Culinary imaginaries, communication networks, and dialogue strategies
Synthesizing these concepts regarding the communicative power of food, the contexts
and communication ecologies which may facilitate intercultural connection, and the influence of
local racial power dynamics, this dissertation offers the concept of “culinary imaginaries”
(Wenzel, 2016) as a framework to look at how residents of the Chicago region navigate their
multiethnic communities through food. Adapting Taylor’s (2004) concept of social imaginaries,
and Lipsitz’s (2011) spatial imaginaries, a “culinary imaginary” is a framework that allows
subscribers to share a sense of how they fit together with the cultures and cuisines of others (or
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do not). Culinary imaginaries can shape how residents travel through their city, how they connect
with communication sources, and how they process their experiences. If their culinary imaginary
is ethnically-bounded, they may avoid places coded as “other” or interpret their experiences in
places of co-presence like restaurants very differently –sometimes making transcultural spaces
“illegible” (Sen, 2013; Wenzel, 2016).
For this study, I develop a typology of participants’ culinary imaginaries. Informed by
what is essentially a culinary communication ecology (Ball-Rokeach et al., 2012) , criteria for
culinary imaginaries include: 1) food practices (how frequently and in what context do they
encounter difference through food?), 2) associational and everyday ties (how frequently and in
what context do they encounter difference in their organizational and interpersonal networks?),
3) use of media (what narratives are circulating about difference in the food media they use?),
and 4) personal biographies (have they had experiences in their personal histories that shape how
they conceive of difference and the racial coding of space?). Accounting for food’s power to
communicate identity and claims to place, I ask:
RQ1: What are residents’ culinary imaginaries?
RQ2: How do residents reflect on belonging in their city or region through the stories they tell
involving food?
RQ3: Which factors (food practices, associational/everyday ties, media, or personal biographies)
account for more or less variation in residents’ mobility and coding of space shared in their
culinary mental maps?
Drawing from concepts of communication ecology, convivial separation/strategic
togetherness, and Varshney’s (2002) argument about the power of associational ties, this study
also examines:
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RQ4: Which factors (food practices, associational/everyday ties, media, or personal biographies)
account for whether residents are more or less likely to talk across lines of difference about
controversial intercultural issues?
This study centers around three cases where diverse groups of strangers share meals in
private homes in the Chicago region. However, each case had different characteristics that
suggest the possibility of different outcomes based on theoretical concepts of convivial
separation (Georgiou, 2016), colorblind racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2006), and agonism (Amin, 2002)
discussed above. For example, Georgiou’s levels of conviviality, would suggest that all groups
should be at least at a politics of civility (level two), as they all involve residents deliberately
seeking encounters with difference. However, moving to the highest level of conviviality (where
there is a sense of mutual care) would require a politics of solidarity and opportunities for regular
and unforced communication. For Meal Sharing this may be difficult given the lack of mission to
discuss racial justice issues. For Table Talks and Diversity Dinners, meeting only once or once a
year (apart from organizers), may limit the ability of non-organizer participants to form effective
collaborations.
In addition, there is variation between each group and even within each initiative,
regarding the degree to which meal discussions are facilitated, and how facilitation is
approached. This is expected to lead to variation regarding the extent they address post-racial
colorblindness ideology (Bonilla-Silva, 2006), and whether they encourage exploration of
difference versus narratives of togetherness and universalism (Walsh, 2008). The variation will
also enable reflection on the premise outlined by Ash Amin (2002), that “agonism” can make
“transparent reasons for resentments and misunderstandings” in a way that builds a stronger
foundation for future encounters. Through observations and interviews, I ask:
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RQ5: How do the varying facilitation strategies of these dialogue-based interventions shape their
approach to colorblind ideology and to conflict?
RQ6: How can we characterize the levels of conviviality of the different interventions, and what
may be required to shift to higher levels in the future?
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CHAPTER 2
Methods and materials

This dissertation approaches these complex and at times delicate research questions
through a methodological buffet. This is not a product of failing to choose, but rather is driven by
a preference for multimethod approaches. Particularly when engaging with issues of race and
identity, I believe providing study participants multiple avenues to express their attitudes and
practices, and contextualizing these in relation to place, history, and media narratives, increases
my ability to interpret research findings. For this reason, I use a combination of qualitative
research methods—including case studies of food-related initiatives involving participant
observation and interviews with organizers, and in-depth interviews with initiative participants
and non-participants which include food logs and cognitive mapping activities.
Case studies and participant observation
As detailed in the introduction, this study centers around three cases located in three areas
of Chicagoland: Diversity Dinners in the South Suburbs, Table Talks in the northern suburb of
Evanston, and Meal Sharing in the city of Chicago. The cases were selected as they all involved
groups of strangers sharing dinners in private homes, but were situated in areas with varied
demographic compositions and histories, and had varied missions and approaches. While Table
Talks and Diversity Dinners came from the Chicago Dinners tradition of facilitated
conversations about diversity and racial justice over dinner, Meal Sharing conversations
organically fluctuated such that there was no guarantee issues of race or difference would be
discussed, and the racial/ethnic composition of guests was not controlled as with the other cases.
This variation enabled comparison of how the structure of dialogue does or does not influence
how difference is expressed. These case studies drew from Burawoy’s (1998) extended case
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study method. This method, “premised upon our own participation in the world we study,”
involves a reflexive dialogue between the researcher, participants, and preexisting theory (p.5).
Each of the three food initiatives were then used to draw convenience samples for
interviews with participants and snowball sampled non-participants (see the section below).
However, prior to conducting the majority of participant interviews, I observed the groups in
action and interviewed their founders and organizers.
For Diversity Dinners and Meal Sharing, I took part as a participant observer in meals.
While I let hosts and participants know I was a researcher interested in their respective groups, I
did not take notes until after the events, nor record names of participants, so as to minimize the
impact on conversational dynamics. Observations focused on the backgrounds of other
participants, how they got involved, and the nature of interactions. I noted whether and how
conversations crossed lines of difference, the role of food in the experience, and narratives of
difference or universalism that circulated, including narratives connected to places in the
Chicago region. For the Diversity Dinners project, I attended planning committee meetings to
better understand their process. Such meetings allowed me to compare these more candid, and
often problem-solving oriented discussions with their more public-facing presentations and texts.
For all three groups, I interviewed organizers to understand how they envisioned and framed the
goals of their group. For the Table Talks project, I was not able to participate in a meal as the
pilot project was aborted after its first two meals (I had been invited to the third, but it never took
place). As I was able to interview the project’s organizers, along with some project participants, I
have still included the case in the dissertation because it illustrates the contexts and challenges
such initiatives face.

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Interviews, food logs, and culinary maps
After observing the project cases, a series of interviews were undertaken to examine the
experiences of project participants, as well as participating and non-participating residents’
broader food practices and culinary imaginaries. I conducted these 57 semi-structured interviews
with residents of the Chicago metro region. Interviewees were drawn from a convenience sample
recruited from participants in three food initiatives (detailed below) and a snowball sample of
non-participants from similar geographic areas. The snowball sample was recruited by inviting
interview participants from the three food initiatives to nominate someone they knew who had
never participated in such a food initiative—but who had similar demographic characteristics
(residential area, race, gender, age). Of a total of 101 residents invited to participate, 57 took
part, 35 did not respond, and 9 responded favorably but were not able to schedule an interview
within the period of the study. The demographics of participants (see Figure 1) reflect the
profiles of participating groups, which overall had more women than men, and an
underrepresentation of Latina/os and overrepresentation of white residents (compared to regional
population percentages). The average median incomes by participants’ zip codes were all above
the state average (56,210), though both Diversity Dinners and Meal Sharing (which included
participants from multiple zip codes in their respective areas) had considerable income variation
between the zip codes of group participants.
55

55
Median household income in 2013 according to city-data.com.
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Table 1. Demographics of participants (food logs, maps, interviews)
Cases Race Age Gender Residential
Tenure
Ave.
Median
income of
zip codes
56

All (N=57) 17 African
American, 28
white,
1 Latina,
5 Asian,
6 other
Range: 18-
81;
average age
45
40 women,
17 men
Average 25
years (Range:
1-75 years)
63,372
Diversity
Dinners
(N=29)
13 African
Americans, 14
white, 1 Asian,
1 other
Range 23-81;
average age
52
21 women, 8
men
Average 35
years (Range:
1-75 years)
65,530
Table Talks
(N=5)
1 African
American, 2
white, 1 Asian,
1 other
Range 18-46;
average age
36
5 women Average 13
years (Range:
2-28 years)
66,135
Meal
Sharing
(N=23)
3 African
American, 12
white, 1
Latino, 3
Asian, 4 other
Range 26 to
64; average
age 38
14 women, 9
men
Average 14
years (Range:
1-52 years)
60,052

In order to document and prompt conversation about residents’ food practices, food
media consumption, and social networks, interviewees were invited to complete a food log to
track food and food-related media consumption for a week prior to being interviewed (See
Appendix A). In addition to what participants ate, which primarily served as a memory prompt,
the logs noted where in the city they ate (to track mobility), with whom they ate (to prompt
discussion of social networks), and any food-related media they used to find out about local
restaurants and food trends.

56
Ibid.
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At the time of the interview, participants were invited to complete a culinary mapping
activity. They were asked to note on a map of their region where home and work (if applicable)
were located, and the name and location of three restaurants they frequented most often. They
were then asked to shade in the map as a whole with different colors based on whether they 1)
went to an area for food, 2) felt uncomfortable going to an area for any reason, or 3) were
unfamiliar with an area. Participants were also asked to note on the map food they associated
with different locations in the city, regardless of whether they liked or ate said food. Categories
of food were left open for participants to label according to their own associations (e.g. Polish
food, American food, fusion food, etc.). The method of culinary mapping was modeled on the
methodological tradition of fear and comfort mapping (Matei & Ball-Rokeach, 2005) as well as
the practice of using sketch maps as storytelling platforms to narrate the personal memories and
social associations contained in cognitive maps (Ozkul & Gauntlett, 2014). The method also
drew from Lynch’s (1960) use of a combination of sketch maps and verbal content to determine
elements of the city (paths, edges, nodes, etc.) –as participants’ maps were analyzed in
combination with their interview responses and food logs.
The maps and the food logs were then used to lay the groundwork for follow up questions
in semi-structured interviews. These conversations were used to clarify details listed in both
materials, such as locations of places mentioned and background information about their social
networks (e.g. the demographics of their friend circles). Participants discussed why they choose
the places they go to (convenience, food preferences, etc.), and how they found out about them
(Yelp, word of mouth, Instagram, on way to work etc.). Participants were also asked to share
more about their most frequented restaurants (why they go, the cultural background of other
customers and staff they notice there, etc.), and how and why they used any food-related media.
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As part of the interview, participants were asked to reflect on their culinary biography,
e.g. how they came to eat the way they eat, what they grew up eating, how their ‘tastes’ in food
have changed over time or not, etc. These culinary histories draw inspiration from methodologies
within feminist ethnographic traditions, such as “food-centered life histories” (Counihan, 2008),
“kitchen table ethnographies” (Perez, 2004), “food voice” (Hauck-Lawson, 1992), and “charlas
culinarias” or “culinary chats” (Abarca, 2012). All of these methods used the lens of food to
gather stories and validate alternative fields of knowledge, and many also tried to incorporate
food into the process. While resource limitations prevented me from interviewing all participants
over a meal, most took place either at a café or a dining table in the participants’ home.
There were numerous opportunities throughout the interviews for participants to reveal
their understanding of dynamics of race and power in the region. In order to minimize the
influence of social desirability responses, which have been found to be exceedingly high in self-
reported responses about race, participants were not asked direct questions about issues of race
and racism until the end of the interview. Whenever possible, potentially sensitive items were
asked indirectly and in multiple ways. For example, given that previous studies have suggested
Chicagoans tended to over-report the “diversity” they experienced,
57
participants were asked
who they ate or talked about particular issues with and then the background of those people
(neighbors, friends, co-workers), rather than simple asking if they had a “diverse” network of
friends. At the same time, opportunities were given for participants to indirectly share attitudes
towards race and place through other sections of the interview such as in the mapping exercise or
discussion of where they did and did not go for food.

57
See findings from researchers who compared self-reported levels of diversity v. actual
diversity of census tracts: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/race-related-chicago-and-race-
perception-polling-and-reality.html?_r=0
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To understand how critical participants were about the power dynamics of cross-cultural
eating, they were invited to participate in a verbal implicit word association exercise (Coleman,
2015) examining what they thought of when they heard terms like ‘authentic’, ‘ethnic, or ‘exotic’
associated with food. They were also asked to reflect on a food-related controversy involving a
white Chicago-based chef who became the subject of high-profile accusations of cultural
appropriation and white privilege
58
after one of his high-end restaurants was given an award for
‘best Mexican restaurant.’
Near the end of the interview, these food-related conversations were used to bridge into
more sensitive and direct questions about participants’ attitudes towards issues of race and
politics. Participants were asked to share thoughts on contemporary political campaign discourse
on race and immigration, which at the time was hotly discussed in the public sphere given the
candidacy of Donald Trump. They were also asked to share their views on the Black Lives
Matter movement, which was highly visible locally due to several incidents of police violence
over the course of the study. After sharing their perspective on each issue, they were asked who,
if anyone, they discussed the issues with, probing as needed to assess whether they talked about
sensitive issues of race and politics across lines of race, ethnicity, and political ideology.
Participants affiliated with the three food-related initiatives also responded to a module of
questions (prior to the sensitive questions regarding race) about their involvement in Diversity
Dinners, Table Talks, or Meal Sharing. Questions were adapted when possible after observing
the groups to ensure they related to groups’ activities. These explored interviewees’ motives,

58
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/22/471309991/when-chefs-become-famous-
cooking-other-cultures-food
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history of involvement, interactions with other participants, and reflections on conversations and
experiences more broadly.
Positionality
Throughout this project, I have sought to be mindful of my own positionality as a white
Chicago resident more than a little interested in food. I have occasionally taken fieldnotes to
record my perception of how my own orientation has shaped experiences interacting with study
participants and observations of activities, and how I continue an ongoing struggle to be mindful
of white privilege and assumptions of whiteness norms.
Analysis
The fieldwork for this dissertation primarily took place over the course of one year, with
most interviews taking place from April to July, 2016, with an additional series of follow-up
interviews and observations in April to May, 2017. Fieldnotes, interview transcripts, and texts
were thematically coded and analyzed using the Dedoose coding platform. Thematic categories
were initially developed in response to research questions. Experiential and affective categories
included: food practices; intercultural communication; connection to associations (e.g. food
initiatives); dialogue facilitation (by associations); attitudes towards difference; attitudes towards
place and belonging; mobility; food media used; personal history; and social networks.
Sub-themes were then added and refined based on initial coding of recurring or
theoretically relevant moments found in a selection of interview transcripts from participants
from each of the three groups, including participants who identified with a range of ethnic/racial
backgrounds. After coding, themes were reviewed and analyzed across transcripts, drawing
quotes from coded sections for illustration. A typology of culinary imaginaries was then
developed by examining the combination of participants’ food/media practice logs, culinary
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maps, and food discourse in interviews—along with their food communication networks and
culinary biographies. This was done by developing a spreadsheet to code and compare individual
cases. Regarding the study’s independent variables, in addition to demographic information, the
spreadsheet listed: the extent participants sought food from various cultural out-groups; the
extent they sought voluntary personal or associational ties with out-groups; whether they had
ever moved or decided not to move their residence due to a desire for more or less ethnic or
racial diversity; whether they had referenced personal experiences of discrimination; and
whether they used local Chicago food media. The spreadsheet also listed the dependent
variables—the degree to which they were mobile throughout the region; whether they ever went
to stigmatized parts of the city; and whether they reported speaking to out-groups about sensitive
issues such as race or immigration. This combination of thematic analysis, mapping, and
typologies was then used to address research questions, starting with questions related to culinary
imaginaries, belonging, and mobility—which are addressed in the chapter that follows.

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CHAPTER 3
Culinary imaginaries and mobility

Before Keith
59
moved to Chicago from California, he came as a visitor, and wanted to
explore all the cuisine Chicago had to offer: “I remember taking the Red Line down almost to the
end, because I had read about this barbecue place that was supposed to be really good.”
Chicago’s Red Line subway runs 23.4 miles from the city’s far North Side to the South Side,
home to a majority African American community. Keith, who is a 64-year old white man, had
taken the train to the South Side:
And I got off the train and there were three cops on the platform in everything—riot gear,
other than the face masks. I mean they had on the vests. They had actual shotguns. And
so I walked up to one of them and said, ‘Is there some sort of police action going on that I
should be aware of?’ And he looked at me and he goes, ‘What are you doing here?’ And I
said, ‘I heard there is a really good barbecue restaurant.’ And he goes, ‘You better be
back here before it gets dark.’
60

Keith said when he walked to the restaurant, he noticed cars stopping to stare at him. He said he
was the only white person he saw. And he said the barbecue really wasn’t that amazing. Keith
shared this story while explaining why he wasn’t comfortable traveling to particular sections of
the city. He took this experience he had as a visitor as a lesson, and now as a resident he limits
his exploration of areas “that have very bad reputations in terms of violence.”
Keith’s experience illustrates how food can pull residents across geographic space and
lead to encounters with difference. But it also illustrates how these encounters can leave a feeling
discomfort, and can be colored by the perspective of the resident. Keith did not recount any
negative interactions or threats apart from the police warnings. He also could not recall which

59
Names of interview participants have been omitted or changed, with the exception of public
figures who are lead organizers of groups.
60
“Keith” Author interview 6/30/16
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neighborhood he was in, pointing to several possibilities on the map, including African
American neighborhoods that are solidly middle class with comparatively lower crime rates. But
the experience of being a visible minority in a segregated neighborhood left him feeling
uncomfortable. He concluded that some culinary travel was not worth it, particularly when there
was reasonably good barbecue much closer to his condo downtown.
In this chapter, I will offer a closer look at how residents of the Chicago region navigate
their city in search of food and food experiences. I will examine residents’ culinary imaginaries,
and how these and other factors may influence mobility. As outlined in Chapter 1, the concept of
culinary imaginaries offers insights into how residents align themselves with the cultures and
cuisines of others—and can be explored by looking at residents’ food practices,
associational/personal ties, use of media, and personal histories.
Eating food of the ‘other,’ eating with the ‘other’
For the 57 participants of this study, I developed a typology (see Table 2) to analyze how
participants oriented themselves towards difference via their food practices. In particular, I
focused on whether residents were seeking difference through food, and who they were eating
that food with (looking at voluntary personal and associational ties). Participants were then
categorized as follows:
1) Eating food of ‘others’ with ‘others’ (EOWO)—These residents reported frequently
eating cuisines from cultures they did not consider to be their own. They also frequently
ate with people from cultures they considered different than their own. This group was
the largest category (with 25 participants), and included more residents from Chicago and
Evanston than the South Suburbs.
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2) Eating food of ‘others’ with in-group (EOWI)—Residents in this category included some
Chicago residents, but more from the South Suburbs. It was the most common category
for white residents. Most participants in this group expressed positive sentiments towards
out-groups but suggested they had a lack of access to residents from cultures other than
their own (how residents communicated with out-groups will be explored more in
Chapter 5).
3) Eating in-group food with out-group (EIWO)—This was by far the smallest category
(only two residents fit this criteria). These residents ate mostly in-group food, but
frequently did so with residents from out-group cultures. Both of these cases involved
white suburban residents who had racial diversity in their family via marriage or
adoption.
4) Eating in-group food with in-group (EIWI)—These residents ate mostly food they
considered to be from their own culture, primarily with others from the same culture.
While this group included both African American and white residents, almost all were
from the South Suburbs, and almost all were retired residents. Within this category there
were two main orientations towards difference: a) people who expressed positive
sentiments towards ‘others’ but lamented lack of access to ‘others’, and b) people who
expressed indifference or negative sentiments towards ‘others.’
Table 2. Typology of culinary imaginaries

All South
Suburbs Chicago Evanston
African
American white Asian Latinx Other
Ave.
Age
EOWO
25
5 16 4 7 9 4 1 4 39
EOWI
19
12 6 1 3 13 1 0 2 47
EIWO
2
2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 59
EIWI
11
10 1 0 7 4 0 0 0 54

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After looking at how people positioned themselves towards difference regarding what and
with whom they were eating, I also looked at other factors shaping residents’ culinary
imaginaries. These included elements of residents’ histories that might shape how they see
difference—such as whether they reported moving or staying in an area in search of greater
ethnic/racial diversity, and whether they mentioned any personal encounters with discrimination.
Participants also discussed their histories with food as children and adults, and what food-related
media they did or did not access.
Mapping mobility
I then examined how residents’ orientations and experiences related to their mobility
throughout the city. Using interviews and maps, I ranked participants’ range of mobility as: 1)
always eating close to home/work, 2) occasional travel for food, or 3) frequent/deliberate travel
for food. I combined this with whether they go to stigmatized areas in the region: 1) never; 2)
occasionally to majority Black, largely middle class, spaces; and 3) occasionally to heavily
stigmatized areas—largely disinvested African American or Latina/o communities on the South
and West Sides or South suburbs. I then grouped residents by high, moderate, or low mobility,
and examined within each category residents’ food practices, voluntary ties, residential moving
history, media use, and experiences with discrimination.
Table 3. Mobility levels

All
(N=
57)
South
Suburbs
(N=29)
Chicago
(N=23)
Evans
ton
(N=5)
African
American
(N=17)
whi
te
(N=
28)
Asian
(N=5)
Latinx
(N=1)
Other
(N=6)
Ave
Age
High 10 5 5 0 8 1 0 0 1 33
Moderate 14 13 1 0 7 5 1 0 1 55
Low 33 11 17 5 2 22 4 1 4 44
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While this study is qualitative in nature, and I do not attempt to make statistical claims,
there did seem to be a relationship between higher mobility and seeking culinary difference.
Residents in the high mobility group, the smallest of the three categories, tended to have higher
culinary difference seeking scores. Seven of the ten high-mobility participants fit the EOWO
category, and tended to be younger on average. Members of this group were largely African
American and came from both Chicago and the South Suburbs. There was not a decisive
relationship between higher mobility and seeking out voluntary social ties with out-group
members, seeking out local media focused on food, or reporting experiences of discrimination—
though there were individual cases where residents offered anecdotes connecting these factors.
To illustrate patterns of mobility and how they converged with the culinary imaginaries
of Chicago area residents, what follows are several examples of participants from various
categories of mobility. Cases have been selected to show a range of experiences shared by
participants from different geographic regions (suburban and urban), racial/ethnic backgrounds,
and generations.
High mobility
“I travel for food.”
At 33, Chris has lived most of his life in the South Suburbs of Chicago. He didn’t grow
up eating sushi or Ethiopian food, but going to college in Washington, DC and working in
corporate environments changed that. “I travel way too far for food. …We don’t have a problem
getting in the car for an hour, or longer even, for a meal if we have time.”
61

Chris, who is African American, explained how he recently moved from a mostly Black
region of the South Suburbs to another mostly white area further West, because he fell in love

61
“Chris” Author interview. 5/12/16.
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with a house on a family-filled street in an area with good schools. His now even longer
commute to his office in downtown Chicago does not deter him from also traveling in multiple
directions for food. He explains how they had recently traveled from the South Suburbs to the
North side of the city for a Mother’s Day meal. And how he and his wife sometimes drove to a
sushi restaurant in the Northwest suburbs, 75 miles away from his house.
On a map of the region, he colored in
places he goes for food in green, and places that
are unfamiliar in orange. Because Chris’ job takes
him all over the region, there was almost no
orange, and he did not use the red pencil—which
denotes uncomfortable. He explained the reasons
he might go in one direction or another for food. In
the suburbs, there were areas near his home that
were convenient, or he might drive East towards
the area he grew up in if he wanted good fried fish,
or his favorite Harold’s—Chicago’s famous chain
of chicken restaurants that evoke fervent
allegiance and rivalry regarding which one is the best, and who has the best ‘mild sauce’. At the
same time, Chris marked areas he went in the city of Chicago—from South Shore on the South
Side to Lincoln Park on the North Side. He also noted Chicago areas he associated with food—
from Little Italy, to the predominantly Mexican neighborhood of Little Village in the near West
side, to Chinatown in the near South Side.
Figure 5. Culinary map of “Chris”
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Chris cared about food and spent time reading and watching media about it—including
local Chicago food television shows and magazines. He even volunteered to participate in the
public television program, ‘Check, Please!’ This show, which was referenced by several
participants, featured a panel of three “real people” Chicago area residents.
62
In each program,
which tended to feature restaurants from a range of cultures and geographies, residents
nominated a restaurant and then reviewed the restaurants nominated by their peers. Chris so far
had not been on the show due to scheduling difficulties, but he hoped to try again in the future.
While Chris was invested in eating food associated with other cultures, he was primarily
eating with people from his own cultural background—coded as EOWI (Eating food of ‘others’
with in-group). While he referenced a few work and social occasions where he’d dine in groups
with people from a mixture of cultural backgrounds, most of his meals were spent with African
American family members and friends. Chris took pleasure in exposing his children to a broader
expanse of cuisines than he had known as a child, and he was willing to drive around town with
family and friends to do so.
“Something happens when people come to Chicago.”
Like Chris, Jasmine attributed her cross-cultural eating to college. But Jasmine didn’t
have to leave town. It’s only about 12 miles between where she grew up in Chicago’s South Side
neighborhood of Englewood and the university she went to in the North Side Lincoln Park
neighborhood. The two neighborhoods were even on the same subway line. But the two
communities may as well have been in different countries. Lincoln Park was 80% white and one
of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods, with a median household income of just over 89
thousand. Englewood, meanwhile, was 95% African American with a median income of just

62
http://checkplease.wttw.com/about
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under 19 thousand.
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Almost every participant in this study, including people of color, singled
out Englewood as the epitome of an unsafe space. The area had become synonymous with
Chicago’s reputation for violence.
Jasmine explained that in high school, her mobility and food choices were fairly limited,
and she spent most of her time with people who looked like her. But in college, “you’re just
forced to mingle.” Even though she went to college in a segregated Chicago, campus life
disrupted the pattern, echoing Amin’s (2002) concept of a “threshold space”—where
“engagement with strangers in a common activity disrupts easy labelling of the stranger as
enemy and initiates new attachments” (p. 970). This disruption also transferred over into how she
ate in and explored the city. However, after college, she noticed, “people start seeing the world
differently.” She reflected that something about the city pushed people into their respective
segregated boxes: “When people come to Chicago, you become very aware of yourself and
where you fit into society.”
These days, living in the Chinatown neighborhood,
Jasmine’s culinary map still had pockets of green across the
city. From far north neighborhoods to as far south as
Chatham and Beverly, she had labels ranging from
Ethiopian to Indian to Italian to Jamaican. Englewood,
where she grew up, is labeled with “Soul Food,” but the
area was shaded in a mix of red and green. She said she
went there, but even she felt uncomfortable due to the
community’s struggle with insecurity and violence.

63
http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/data/metropulse/community-snapshots
Figure 6. Culinary map of “Jasmine”

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Unlike Chris, Jasmine fell into the category of EOWO (Eating food of ‘others’ with
‘others’). She socialized and participated in groups like Meal Sharing and Couchsurfing, though
she was often one of the only African Americans. She explained she now had friends from
various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, though she said she had fewer white American friends
than white European immigrant friends.
“I want to taste the world.”
Jasmine did meet Dan, a white American, through Meal Sharing. Dan also had high
mobility and was coded as EOWO. For Dan, food was a window into various cultures, and he
was happy to go almost anywhere, with anyone, to open those windows: “I want to try
everything.”
64
Dan, who was 48, explained that he had not always had this relationship with
food. He used to live in places where there were fewer food options. He remembered how he was
nearly 40 the first time he tried hummus:
“I’d heard of hummus. I’d seen hummus. Hummus didn’t look very appetizing. The
name hummus sounded awful, and I just didn’t want to try it.”

But visiting a town in Michigan with his children they ordered a sampler platter at a Lebanese
restaurant. He felt he had to set an example for his kids, and he fell in love at first bite. “I was
like, wow … what else is out there that I haven’t discovered?”
This new relationship with food coincided with considerable life changes. He moved
from the suburbs to the city of Chicago by himself. He sought to expand his social networks by
participating in groups such as Couchsurfing and Meal Sharing (an association which will be
explored more in the next Chapter), which led him to eat with area residents from a range of
geographic and cultural backgrounds. While he had a history of intercultural personal

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“Dan” Author interview. 5/28/16
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relationships, this was his first time living in a
major urban area, and he wanted to live somewhere
ethnically diverse. This was one of the reasons he
said he chose to move to Bronzeville, a historically
Black neighborhood just south of downtown
Chicago. While talk of gentrification had circulated
about the neighborhood for years, it had remained a
transitional community with few new
developments, and very few white residents.
Dan claimed to be “comfortable anywhere with
anybody.” He explained his map of Chicago where
he colored in places he goes for food in green, places that are unfamiliar in orange, and places
that are uncomfortable in red. He only used the red pencil to shade the Northwest suburbs—
noting that he no longer felt comfortable in those areas where he used to live. He said the
“suburbs suck the soul out of you.”
Despite this, Dan acknowledged he did limit his mobility in some instances:
There are places I’m not going to be foolish enough to go to at night in a neighborhood
around me. I’m obviously going to stick out like a sore thumb. I’m not going to drive
down to Englewood in the middle of the night to go get something.

This said, Dan explained that he would go through Englewood during the day and if he saw a
barbecue joint or other intriguing food spot, especially with a line outside the door, he would
stop. This set him apart from our earlier barbecue aficionado Keith, and other less mobile white
participants, who directly or indirectly expressed discomfort with being the only white person in
a space racially coded as Black. For most white study participants, mobility had limits—and
Figure 7. Culinary map of “Dan”
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those limits often coincided with boundaries of stigmatized areas that were majority African
American or Latina/o.
Moderate mobility
“I take my dining out very seriously.”
Pete’s culinary world offers contrast to Dan’s. Like Dan, Pete was white and in his 40s.
While Dan lived just south of downtown in Bronzeville, Pete lived in a downtown high-rise in
the West Loop. But while Dan fit the EOWO category
(Eating food of ‘others’ with ‘others’), Pete was in the EOWI
category (Eating food of ‘others’ with in-group), as the
majority of his meals were spent with other white residents.
Pete’s map also contrasted with Dan’s, reflecting a
mobility pattern more commonly shared by study
participants—and especially white study participants. While
there was a cluster of green shaded spaces where he ate
downtown and on the north side of Chicago, the primarily
African American and Latina/o South and West Sides of the city were marked with red to denote
discomfort. Other areas were marked orange for unfamiliar. Hyde Park, one of the few
multiethnic neighborhoods on Chicago’s South Side (home to the University of Chicago), was
circled green as a spot he had occasionally gone to eat. This also was common—Hyde Park as an
island of green in a sea of orange or red on the city’s South Side.
Pete explained why he didn’t go to the areas marked red:
You know, these areas are just dangerous. I mean, this is where, you know, a lot of the
shootings and stuff happens. I’ve, you know, rarely heard of a place that’s worth going to
in those areas. So I mean, there’s just so many options in these areas [pointing to
Figure 8. Culinary map of “Pete”
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downtown and North side] there’s like no reason to go to these areas [pointing to South
and West sides] given the risk and how far they are.

This justification of being surrounded by plenty in downtown and North side neighborhoods, and
hearing nothing but negative news about South and West Side communities, was a frequent
refrain.
Within the areas of the city that were comfortable, Pete did eat out a considerable
amount. He explained that he loved food, but he didn’t like to cook. The venues he went to the
most frequently were fairly upscale restaurants downtown. They weren’t necessarily the most
formal, though as with most downtown restaurants, the price points were high compared to other
areas of the city. Pete explained that he had a “strong fixation with authenticity”—which to him
meant eschewing celebrity chef driven restaurants which he suggested did not score well when it
came to “the quality of the food and the value and the ambience.” He explained how he saw his
orientation to food:
I’m a food snob in the sense that I insist on quality and value. But like that doesn’t mean
that I don’t love a Chicago dog any less than whatever, you know, eating at a great high
end French restaurant. I welcome all comers.

Pete, a California native who had relocated to the region 12 years prior, said his palate had
become “more adventurous and more sophisticated” over the years due largely to international
travel. Perhaps in part explained by the fact that he had gotten rid of his car and he did not report
using local food media, his awareness of Chicago area cuisines was centered around downtown
and a little on the North side.

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“New foods don’t scare me.”
As a resident of an ethnically-diverse neighborhood on the city’s Northwest side, Tara’s
eating pathways illustrate a variation on the moderate mobility participant. Like Pete, Tara fell
into the EOWI category (Eating food of ‘others’ with in-group), and mostly ate with others white
Midwesterners. But for Tara, who was 27 and had lived in
Chicago for a decade, food was a way to get to know the city
and its residents:
I always love going on a field trip to a different neighborhood
to eat whatever they are known for. So like, when I go to
Pilsen I love going there for some tacos.
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Tara also noted using local food media, and from Persian to
Polish to Puerto Rican, her map reflected a considerable
range of culinary interests. “I feel like I’m a lot more
interested in food than a lot of my friends,” she explained.
She said sometimes she had a hard time convincing friends to go to some of the restaurants she
wanted to try:
I mean, the idea of going for African food would just scare some of them. Like eating
with your fingers with the pounded yam, they wouldn’t like that idea. Like, no that
sounds messy, or what if I don’t like it?

She attributed her own interest in food to being a “curious person”: “I want to know about all of
the different kinds of foods, and where they come from, and the people behind them.”
At the same time, based on her map, her curiosity had limits. While she noted going to
certain historically Latina/o neighborhoods that had become food destinations (e.g. Pilsen,

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“Tara” Author interview 7/26/16
Figure 9. Culinary map of “Tara”
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Humboldt Park), her moderate mobility did not extend to other more stigmatized West and South
Side Latina/o and African American neighborhoods. Those areas were all marked as unfamiliar.
Unlike Pete, Tara did not use the red pencil at all. In this way, she represented a number of white
residents who insisted they felt comfortable everywhere—but that they happened to be
unfamiliar with African American and Latina/o areas that were stigmatized.
For Tara, Chicago’s “city of neighborhoods” narrative was dominant. When asked about
whether the city was segregated, her initial response was an account of how numerous
neighborhoods were characterized by ethnic enclaves. She gave the example of Polish areas
where she had relatives: “I like it because it’s like getting an experience in each neighborhood
that you go to.” She reasoned that immigrants coming from Poland probably settled there
because it was “an area that would be comfortable for them to make the transition into.” She later
acknowledged that African Americans had ended up concentrated in certain areas of the city less
due to preference than discrimination, but she did not indicate an awareness of the city’s history
of discriminatory housing policies.
“We have nowhere to eat.”
For Jean, a 67-year old African American woman, the realities of segregation in Chicago
were more familiar. Like Tara, Jean was in the moderately mobile category. But Jean, who fit the
EIWI category (Eating in-group food with in-group), explained that her mobility was often
motivated more by necessity than a desire for culinary exploration.
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Pointing to the map, most of the restaurants
she frequented were at least 20 minutes away from
where she lived. Special occasion places could be more
than an hour away. But even ordinary take-out places
took effort. When asked if she ate in her own
community of Matteson, she laughed, “There’s no place
to go! We’re not eating in Matteson because we don’t
have any food.”
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Jean explained that in recent years, her suburb
had experienced a considerable flight of restaurants and
other business chains. Area officials called the phenomenon “retail redlining” (South Suburban
Retail Investment Study, 2012). The area had high socio-economic indicators, but because it was
majority African American, it was associated with blighted stigmatized areas in the region—
often by corporate offices that assumed anything that combined the words South, Chicago, and
African American spelled a problematic combination for business. Jean said she agreed that this
phenomenon had something to do with race, though she thought a lack of a strong economic
development plan may have contributed to the problem.
The end result was a lack of close-to-home restaurants that often led Jean and her
husband to drive a fair distance to get something like barbecue in a predominantly white
community. She reported that some of these restaurants ended up attracting a “diverse clientele”
from “everywhere”—but that people aren’t really talking to each other, they get their food and
get out.

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“Jean” Author interview. 5/16/16
Figure 10. Culinary map of “Jean”
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Jean, who considered herself “a suburbanite at heart” also used a fair amount of red
pencil shading in various parts of the city. She explained that she used to have to go to places
like North Lawndale and Englewood for work but some of these were “kind of tough” areas.
Like many African American study participants, she also felt uncomfortable going to stigmatized
areas in the city, or places such as Ford Heights in the South Suburbs.
Low mobility
“There are no super exciting restaurants.”
The largest group of study participants fell into the low mobility category—though their
reasons for limiting the amount they traveled through the region for food varied considerably.
Gwen grew up in the South before moving to the Chicago region. She said food and
family meals have always been important, and admitted she had always been an emotional eater:
I eat, for the way it makes me feel. And it releases those endorphins. And I eat when I’m
sad. I eat when I’m worried. I eat when I’m happy. I eat when we’re celebrating. I eat
when I’m alone. I eat for all of the reasons that you can probably think about.

But these days, Gwen said she was finding herself
somewhat bored with food, and particularly with eating
out—largely because, similar to Jean, she saw a lack of
local options. She recalled a recent moment where she
and her husband sat at the table frustrated that they
couldn’t think of a restaurant nearby they wanted to go to.
Choosing her colored pencils, Gwen, who also fit
the EIWI category (Eating in-group food with in-group),
explained the very different reasons she shaded different
parts of the map red, for uncomfortable. The 59-year old
Figure 11. Culinary map of “Gwen”

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African American resident of South Suburban Matteson explained that she shaded some areas
like Chicago’s Englewood and Roseland due to safety concerns, but that she shaded suburbs to
her West, including Orland Park, Tinley Park, and Frankfurt for a different reason. These areas
are often associated with white flight—both in terms of residents and retail:
I don’t like going into this area, even though I go. …and I’ll tell you why. Because, and
this has something to do with race, all of the stores we had in Matteson –with incomes of
90 to 100 thousand dollars—got moved across Harlem Ave to this very area. We have no
choice but to go there to eat …we have to literally go out of our area and I feel some
resentment because of that.
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Gwen shared the example of Cracker Barrel, a Southern food chain that always seemed to
be doing good business, and was regularly packed after church. Nevertheless, as Matteson’s
African American majority grew, the restaurant closed and left, even though the socio-economic
class of residents had not changed. In response, a number of residents organized a boycott of
Cracker Barrel in the adjacent majority white Tinley Park area. Gwen also stayed away.
Despite her resentment, and her general avoidance, Gwen said she still occasionally
ventured into the Tinley and Orland area. One of the places she was drawn to was a restaurant
chain that offered wine tastings:
I’ll just share with you that when I first started going there… um, the restaurant was
predominantly white. Now that I’ve been going there in the last year, year and a half, it’s
predominantly black. …It’s just made that flip.

Gwen explained that her observation of the restaurant over the past decade reflected the growth
of the African American population of Matteson and the fact that many from her area
increasingly traveled there due to a lack of local options. She said that since the restaurant
reached a demographic tipping point, she also noticed a slight difference in the service. While
she prefaced her observation with it “could be me reading more into it than is truly there,” she

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“Gwen” Author interview. 4/25/16
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observed things like it taking them longer to clean the tables: “Things just kind of sat there. You
know. Whereas when I went in before it seems like things were just hopping and moving.”
Interestingly, two white participants also mentioned this same restaurant as a space
notable for being lively and diverse—and one of the only places where they were likely to
interact with African American diners, usually over a wine tasting:
Just last week we went in on the other day, there was an African American couple next to
us and they were really cute. I even leaned over and said, ‘You two make the cutest
couple.’ And we got into a little conversation after that.
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But another African American resident suggested that this moment of shared space is unlikely to
last, as the restaurant falls into a pattern of white flight:
Very honestly, when too many people from this neighborhood find out about it over here,
it kind of changes. And it will still be there … and that tax base is still getting supported.
But the last time I was at [that restaurant], it was more Black people than the white
folks.
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Gwen’s said her concern that customer service norms changed when more African American
patrons started coming may have had something to do with generational attitudes. Still her
reading of the situation reflected a feeling that a number of African American participants had
shared—a sense that they were not always welcome when they ventured into restaurants that had
historically been white spaces.
Lorraine, also an African American South Suburbs resident, explained why she preferred
the Red Lobster in her primarily Black suburb to the one in the primarily white Orland Park:
You seem to find more of a mixture. You may see younger, older, mixed races even here.
And that’s one of the things that I like, is that you really do see a lot of mixed races here
so it makes it more comfortable. Where if you go to some of the other places—when I go
to the Red Lobster or whatever in Orland maybe—there’re more whites. And you’re not
always, I’m not always as comfortable.

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“Brad” Author interview. 4/27/16
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“Anthony” Author interview. 5/2/16.
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She said she had some negative experiences in Orland Park in the past:

They may take a while to serve you. You may be sitting there. And as matter of fact
yesterday my girlfriend and I were at a restaurant in Orland. And I had gone to the
restroom before we got seated. And when I got back she still didn’t have water or
anything. And so I said, ‘Oh, no one’s come?’ She’s like, ‘No.’ So when the hostess
came by the next time she was like, ‘Hi, is someone going to serve us?’ Someone came
right away. So I don’t know if it was just… It was probably around 3:30. I don’t know if
it was a change of shifts… or what was going on.

Whatever the explanation for slow service, Lorraine’s recollections illustrate how such
interactions can be seen through the lens of microagression (Sue et al., 2007) or what John
Jackson (2010) called “racial paranoia” characterized by “distrustful conjecture about purposeful
race-based maliciousness.” Regardless of the restaurant staff’s intentions, the feeling of not being
given equal treatment was real. For these participants, the resentment of having to drive a
distance to go to a restaurant that previously was in their own community was compounded by
feeling unwelcome when they got there. As Sarah Ahmed (2008) warned, this potentially
convivial space was colored by a history of alienation.
It was not only African American South Suburban residents who tried to avoid Orland
Park. Gretchen, a white resident of Matteson also said she tried to avoid the area: “I don’t like to
spend my money in Orland Park. They get enough of everyone’s sales tax revenue. They don’t
need mine.” Gretchen was acutely aware of the retail redlining issue having worked in local
government elsewhere in the area. She also was an example of a white resident who had moved
in the opposite direction of white flight—deliberately moving to the area because of its diversity
at a time when most white residents were leaving. As for food, Gretchen fit the low mobility
category and had a fairly utilitarian approach--tending not to venture far from home. When she
did, she was generally motivated by the preferences of her kids or coworkers, or the proximity of
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a restaurant to somewhere she had to go. But her political sensibilities gave her added reason to
avoid mobility in a certain direction.
“Everybody seems to get along well.”
When Martha moved to Matteson 16 years ago, she went from one changing community
to another. She explained that she had left her old home near Chicago’s Midway airport, which
itself had shifted from mostly working class Polish and other white ethnic groups to mostly
working class Latina/o. After a shooting on her street, she and her husband put their house up for
sale.
When she arrived in Matteson, she found a community with a rapidly increasing African
American community. As a now 81-year old white woman, living as a minority was a new
experience for her. She said at first she debated whether to go to stores and restaurants in
Matteson. She said white friends had suggested she should go west to businesses in majority
white areas to shop or get food. She decided to try shopping locally, and found herself pleasantly
surprised. She was particularly impressed by gestures of politeness like people holding the door
for her: “I was just so amazed because the people, even today, they are so nice. A lot of times
they seem a lot more courteous than a lot of the white people do, you know.”
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Martha continues to be remarkably active. She generally did not travel far for food, and
she fell within the EIWI category (Eating in-group food with in-group). But while most of the
people she socialized with were white, she explained how she sometimes would be put in the
position to encourage them to be more open to local establishments:
Sometimes somebody will say, well, you know about this restaurant, was there a lot of
black people there? I says, sometimes I almost have to think, you know, because I’m so
used to them I don’t even think about that.

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“Martha” Author interview. 5/6/16
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She admitted growing up in a small town, her limited encounters with African Americans had
left her fearful of difference. She even recounted how she and others would matter-of-factly refer
to the only African Americans in the town by the N-word. But by moving to Matteson, she found
herself unexpectedly working part-time or volunteering alongside African Americans. With her
new outlook she said she was now often the one telling other white people not to worry about
African Americans moving into their neighborhood. And she often encouraged them to give the
shops and restaurants in the area a try.
“The neighborhoods have changed.”
Becky had rather different reasons for limiting her mobility. She was among a minority
of white South Suburban study participants who had a background that fit patterns of white flight
–moving West and towards Indiana. She liberally applied red pencil to areas of the map that
were now majority people of color.
As a lifelong resident of the area, her memories of food growing up underlined how the
area had changed, and not for the better, in her opinion. Pointing to the map, she explained:
It used to be that when I was in high school we’d go to Ford Heights. And we could get a
beef sandwich. And now we can’t go to Ford Heights because it’s not safe. And that’s the
same for most of this area. And a lot of this area too. I don’t feel safe there.

Many residents, including African Americans, referenced the disinvested community of Ford
Heights as an area they avoided. The city had a rich history, first as a stopping point in the
underground railroad, then as a farming community for European immigrants and later African
American migrants from the South. When Ford opened a stamping plant there in the 1950s, it
became one of the few places in the South Suburbs working class African Americans could live.
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But by the late 1980s, Ford Heights was declared the most
impoverished suburb in the U.S. (Johnson, 1987), and it lost
some 48% of its population between 1980 and 2010.
For Becky, Ford Heights cast a long shadow. She
extended the sphere of red pencil across many adjacent
middle and upper middle class African American
communities, as well as other communities that had shifted
from majority white to African American and Latino in
prior decades. Referring to these areas where she said she
did not feel safe, she added, “There aren’t any restaurants I want to go to in these areas.”
Becky’s restaurant routines these days were mostly restricted to areas around where she
lives, which are majority white. While she said she occasionally found a restaurant she wanted to
try in Chicago Magazine, traveling outside of the area was relatively rare. “We usually go to the
same places,” she explained. Most of the restaurants served Italian fare—some were long-
standing family restaurants—including some that had moved to the area coinciding with white
flight, but there was also a regional chain. “I don’t like surprises,” she acknowledged.
Becky, as a member of the EIWI category (Eating in-group food with in-group), also
mostly ate with other residents who looked like her and had a similar background. She
mentioned many of her friends shared an affinity for the same restaurants. With one of her
favorites she mentioned, “the one here, a lot of times you see the same people.” For Becky,
comfort seemed to coincide with familiarity and homophily. Whereas many African American
residents in the South Suburbs saw a diverse clientele as a positive sign that they would be
welcome, Becky preferred spaces where diversity was limited. For her, mobility was not a
Figure 12. Culinary map of “Becky”

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priority, in part because it didn’t have to be. While there were some limits to nearby culinary
options, there were multiple places to choose from in close proximity, in contrast to the
complaints of African American participants from suburbs to the East.
“Chicago is a very divided town.”
It wasn’t only South Suburban residents who had
low mobility. Many Chicago residents also noted
circulating within a fairly limited radius in pursuit of food.
For Stacy, this was the result of a combination of factors.
She didn’t have a car, but living downtown, she didn’t need
to go far to access a wide range of restaurants. When she
did venture out for food, it was usually to go North. Her
map reflected this by the dominance of orange and red –
denoting unfamiliarity or discomfort—shading Chicago’s
South and West sides.
Stacy’s discussion of where she had gone for food over the years, as a life-long resident
of the region, also illustrated how she saw neighborhood change through the lens of food. Now at
age 54, she mentioned one of her favorite places to take visitors was a restaurant in Greektown
she had been patronizing since she first went on her 16
th
birthday. She commented on how over
the years the customers she saw changed, and now more came from the surrounding
neighborhood:
Like when I started going there, it was skid row. Like you were kind of afraid to go there.
But, you know, now it’s fancy. …[Before] people, like nobody lived around there. It was
some place you would go, but there was no life around there. So now … neighborhood
people go there. So it’s a variety of people.
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“Stacy” Author interview. 5/21/16.
Figure 13. Culinary map of “Stacy”

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To Cathy, visiting the restaurant exposed her to how the neighborhood was developing. The way
she spoke about the area also revealed how she affixed value to it and its residents before and
after gentrification. The Greektown area had been inhabited throughout her time visiting the
restaurant. But before the area became home to luxury condos, bringing a different socio-
economic and racial demographic—her generalization was that “nobody lived around there,” and
that there was “no life around there.”
For many participants, particularly Chicago residents who were not African American or
Latinx, large chunks of the map, particularly on the South and West Sides, were discussed with
an air of “here be dragons”—a blank space, or an exotic unknown. “Wow I’ve never heard of
some of these neighborhoods,” Stacy admitted while looking at the map. “Clearly I’m not very
familiar with the South Side.” Other participants shared similar sentiments about the South Side:
“Besides for Hyde Park, the town here is a whole different world.”
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For Stacy, her lack of knowledge about where to go or what to eat in the South and West
Sides underlined her larger sense of living in a divided city. “Things aren’t mixed together,” she
said referring to the segregated nature of Chicago and how issues of crime and violence
disproportionately affected South and West Side communities:
There’s like some dividing lines where, I don’t know what’s going on down here
(pointing to South Side), you know. I mean it’s very sad that it’s not an integrated city.

Stacy recognized that her reality of feeling safe in her neighborhood was very different from the
reality experienced by Chicagoans living in the areas she had shaded red. But given her limited
mobility and lack of first-hand encounter, this resigned sense of disparity was somewhat abstract.

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“Cary” Author interview 5/19/16.
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Unlike Keith, who had at least attempted to venture stigmatized areas in search of barbecue,
Stacy explained that the areas she avoided were mostly ones she had heard about on the news.
This was a fairly common refrain from Chicagoans, referencing back to findings of Matei and
Ball-Rokeach’s (2005) study mapping fear and comfort in Los Angeles. Many participants noted
limiting their mobility and avoiding stigmatized neighborhoods almost entirely based on second
or third hand warnings or media accounts.
Conclusion: imaginaries and mobilities
While this study makes no claims to be statistically representative, looking overall at how
participants interact with and travel through the Chicago region for food, certain patterns emerge.
The stories participants shared about where they went to eat, and how those areas changed, often
illustrated their connection to the city and the region—what areas were part of childhood
memories, what areas felt comfortable or were now off-limits. Neighborhood and demographic
change was felt, if not tasted, through a lost sandwich for some, or a sit-down restaurant for
others. Participants could also signal their engagement with the Chicago region by what they did
or did not seek out in their own neighborhood or the wider area.
Participants who were willing to travel significant distances for food were more likely to
seek difference through food—including seeking out cuisines from different cultures. While
some did so eating with people from other cultural backgrounds, even those in the high mobility
group who ate mostly with members of their in-group often found themselves in spaces that were
coded as ethnically and racially ‘other.’ Overall, these participants tended to be younger. This
group was primarily African American, with the exception of a white American and a white
European immigrant, both of whom fell into the category of EOWO (Eating food of ‘others’ with
‘others’).
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The majority of participants, however, were not highly mobile. Most traveled moderate
distances at most. Variation amongst low-moderate mobility participants often seemed to be
influenced by their geographic location and racial/ethnic background. For example, residents in
South Suburban areas that had seen restaurants shift West following white flight patterns would
either report traveling some distance into neighboring areas in pursuit of dining options, or in
avoiding them as a political statement.
Residents of white flight destination areas, or of many neighborhoods in downtown or the
North side of Chicago, meanwhile, often reported eating close to home due to the availability of
restaurants. Some acknowledged feeling uncomfortable in spaces coded as African American.
Several, in addition to Keith, noted being warned off by Chicago police who essentially told
them that they did not belong in the area. For a police force so often criticized for not caring for
Black lives, the care they demonstrated for white ones in these anecdotes was notable—e.g.
waiting with white residents to catch their bus. For others, the sense of being out of place was
more an internal gut reaction. For example, one participant recalled going with her husband to
try a restaurant in a nearby suburb that they had seen on a food television show. She recalled the
moment they walked in: “We were a little apprehensive. I said, ‘This is a Black place.’”
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Others
refused to use a red-pencil denoting discomfort, but followed similar mobility trends—which did
not take them to areas coded as Black.
A variation on this calculus affected the dining patterns of African American residents as
well. One participant explained that for years she didn’t know about a major shopping area
because her father never went to areas he saw as coded white:
My Dad’s hypersensitive about stuff like that. He’ll even still be here and he’ll be like,
‘Oh no, I didn’t go to that Dairy Queen up the road because I don’t want to be the only

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“Tracy” Author interview. 5/16/16.
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Black guy there.’ I was like, ‘Dad, we all over this place!’ (laughs) But he still doesn’t
see it that way.
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Of course for African American diners, there was also the concern in certain areas of becoming a
victim of racial profiling by the police. A resident explained how her friend’s son had been
stopped by the police four or five times because they allegedly didn’t believe he could have such
a nice car in the predominantly white Orland Park suburb.
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Given these complications, the idea of food drawing residents into proximity seemed
somewhat fraught. Anthony, an African American participant from a somewhat stigmatized area
of the South Suburbs, said he thought it was unlikely that food would draw people like Stacy
from downtown Chicago to areas on Chicago’s South and West side where they might have
opportunities to interact with communities of color:
If I’m a well to do person of non-color on the North side and I’ve got great restaurants,
great school systems, great housing… what is my motivation? You know what I’m
saying. And these are real issues. These are real people that are suffering. These are real
folks that are dying. All this stuff that is happening in these South, West side areas. But
what’s the motivation. It’s a difficult thing to make that connection.

At the same time, Anthony did see some potential for food as a connector—but primarily when
done in a more deliberate fashion through dialogue initiatives such as Diversity Dinners, the
topic of our next chapter.

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“Erica” Author interview. 5/14/16.
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“Lorraine” Author interview. 7/27/16.
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CHAPTER 4
Dialogue and dinner

When Tracy was 10 years old, her cooking teacher revealed a secret. It was the early
1950s, and growing up in rural Illinois, Tracy did not know any African Americans. But that
summer, she got to take a cooking class at a nearby university. “My cooking teacher told me all
about Black people,” she said. The detail Tracy remembered was the teacher saying that, “If you
have a Black cook, they put too much cinnamon in the food.”
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Having never interacted with
Black people, let alone Black cooks, Tracy said she had no reason to doubt this piece of
information.
Decades later, as a participant in the dinner and discussion project Diversity Dinners,
Tracy sat in the home of an African American family living in an adjacent suburb. She recalled
sitting there thinking, “alright, bring out the cinnamon.” She laughed at the foolishness of the
thought, “What can I say. …I know better but it’s one of those prejudices.”
While Tracy was the only participant to mention this cinnamon mythology, numerous
others mentioned experiences of sitting in the homes of cultural out-group members—and how
the rarity of this act led them to confront the dissonance between assumed narratives of race and
the material reality of their tables and fellow diners surrounding them.
In this chapter, I will examine three cases that invited diverse groups of Chicago area
residents to share meals in the private homes of strangers. I explore the pathways to participation
for each case, and the nature of interactions across lines of difference. In particular, I look at the
group’s philosophies and practices regarding facilitation of discussions, and whether agonism
(Amin 2002) is welcome or avoided, as well as whether narratives of colorblind universalism

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“Tracy” Author interview. 5/16/16.
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(Bonilla-Silva, 2006) are present and whether they are challenged. After reviewing these areas
for each case, I discuss where the three groups fall in terms of their level of conviviality
(Georgiou, 2016) and potential and barriers they face regarding shifting to higher levels in the
future.
Diversity Dinners
Getting to the table
Arriving at Gwen’s suburban home, I and other guests were ushered into a back room
where a long table had been set for the occasion. It was April 14, 2016, the night of Diversity
Dinners, an annual event where residents of Chicago’s South Suburbs opened their homes to
strangers. That night, there were 26 hosts—fifteen sharing their homes, and another eleven
facilitating larger groups at venues like churches or schools. In all, 584 guests were assigned by a
planning committee to attend one of these 26 locations.
The evening was the end result of what was an elaborate matchmaking scheme. For
nearly 20 years, Diversity Dinners had been run by a committee of volunteers from the area. The
group was not an incorporated non-profit, but the 14-member planning committee received
support from local governments (Flossmoor, Park Forest, Richton Park, Homewood, and
Olympia Fields), high schools, organizations such as the League of Women Voters, and other
community stakeholders. Several of the committee members worked for local government or
other organizations and were able to work on Diversity Dinners as part of their jobs. Each of
these parties helped with the recruitment of both guests and hosts (distributing flyers to their
respective libraries, listservs, and networks), as well as with monetary donations which covered
the expenses of catering the dinners.
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The planning committee had a series of meetings each season. After initial planning
meetings, they launched the season with a ‘Kick-Off Breakfast’ for potential hosts and donors.
At the breakfast, participants learned about the history of Diversity Dinners and heard from a
keynote speaker—which in the case of 2016 was one of the original organizers of Chicago
Dinners.
After this recruitment phase, when interested participants had signed up to attend, they
were categorized by race/ethnicity, age, gender, and community of residence. Committee
members then placed guests with available hosts, trying to maximize the range of “diversity”
within each group. In the case of our dinner, this meant we ended up with six African American,
five white, one Asian, and one Latina participants. Our table included seven women and six men,
ages ranging from 22 to 71 years old.
The committee also attempted to include residents from a mix of South Suburban
communities. The area consisted of a patchwork of communities, some more segregated than
others, and some with different histories regarding white flight. For this reason, the committee
sought to include both residents from different backgrounds who might live in the same suburb,
as well as residents who lived in nearby suburbs. For participants who came back year after year,
they still ended up meeting different people each year, as the committee aimed for participants to
be exposed to as many new people as possible.
As the other participants began to trickle in, I noticed several, like me, who came on their
own and didn’t know anyone. There was also one couple, Brad and James, and later a college
teacher came with three of her students. Since Brad and James were sitting near the drinks table
they enthusiastically took the role of scooping the ice and distributing cans of soda. Others
passed around paper plates. While waiting for late arrivals, the early participants made small
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talk. ‘Did you come from far,’ quickly shifted to discussions of the varied tax rates in adjacent
suburbs—a topic that seemed to evoke considerable shared concern.
Once all the dinner guests arrived, Gwen, the host, and her friend, a neighbor who had
come to help, set out the food. Diversity Dinners provided hosts with free catered meals which
they picked up from an area high school cafeteria and brought home to reheat and plate. There
were trays of chicken, rice pilaf, steamed vegetables, bruschetta, salad, and fruit. Gwen’s
husband glanced at the food, declared it was not enough, and excused himself. He would later
reemerge with bags of fried fish and chicken—and while there was a surplus of food, these
admittedly drew more enthusiasm than the catered meal. With food on the table, the discussion
could begin.
At Gwen’s house, the group included a mixture of Diversity Dinners veterans and first-
timers. Gwen herself had participated in several dinners before—though this was her first time as
a host. She explained that she saw Diversity Dinners as a way to invest in her community. Prior
to living in the middle class, now majority African American, suburb of Matteson, she said she
had moved from two neighborhoods that had “died.” These were areas that were integrated
middle class communities until white flight and disinvestment swept away resources and
infrastructure. She wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again:
I don’t want our neighborhood to go to pots. I don’t want it to go bad. I don’t want it to
be a scary place. I don’t want it …to feel like a combat zone. I don’t want it to not feel
like home. …I really like our community and to help it stay a likeable community. I think
that’s one of the biggest reasons that I participate in, or you know, try to do things in my
neighborhood. Just trying to keep it alive.
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Gwen says she’s found value in participating in Diversity Dinners, and in getting to know other
residents in her community and neighboring communities:

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“Gwen” Author interview. 4/25/16
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It’s been rewarding. You know you, you really kinda learn how other people think.
People that live in your neighborhood. Are they thinking some of the same things you’re
thinking? As our neighborhood changes, are they having some of the same feelings?

Gwen’s trajectory of going from guest to host was fairly common with the Diversity
Dinners project. Other participants spoke of how they had found out about the dinners through
other groups they were involved in—such as the League of Women Voters, their school, or their
church. For Allen, a first-time participant who sat next to me, it was his pastor’s wife who
encouraged him and gave him a flyer. While he was fairly quiet during the meal, afterwards he
said he hoped to go “probably every year,” and “maybe be a host one day.”
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Appetizers and facilitation styles
After going around the table for introductions, Gwen invited participants to share their
experiences with “diversity”. James shared what it was like to be an openly gay white man
teaching in a diverse but majority African American school. Gwen offered her own memories of
growing up as an African American in the segregated rural South as a child before moving to
Chicago.
Like the other hosts, Gwen had received the host training guide. The guide begins with a
statement of the project’s mission: “A few people having dinner can; build positive relationships,
establish cross-cultural communication and acknowledge similarities as well as appreciate
difference.” The guide goes on to offer tips for “conversation starters” that have four qualities:
1) “They are personal,” 2) “They’re not too personal,” 3) “They reflect a genuine interest,” and
4) “They are delivered with confidence.” It then lists a few “sample starter questions” including:
“What was your favorite decade? (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, etc.)” and “What is one thing unique about
yourself?” These questions focus more on engaging participants in conversation than in focusing

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“Allen” Author interview. 4/22/16
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on issues of racial justice. However, later under the heading “sample conversation starter,”
questions sync more directly with the mission: “What do you like about living in the southern
suburbs? Describe your first experience with diversity.” The last suggested conversation starter
is the most direct:
Guest: Race is… ‘the most serious problem confronting America today.’
Host: ‘That’s interesting; tell me more. Can you relate a personal experience that
illustrates how race affects you personally?’ (Responding in this way will keep your
guests focused on experiences rather than opinions.)
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Given the range of conversation starters modeled, hosts interpreted their mandate in
varying ways. Shifting to another home, Elizabeth, a white resident who hosted, recalled her
experience. She said she did not directly ask about issues of racial justice: “It was more just
exchanging stories about growing, when you were a child growing up.”
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She said she found
value in the experience even if they didn’t address the topics in the host guide:
All I can say is there was just a camaraderie and connectedness. …Maybe that’s my fault
as a hostess that I didn’t bring up more serious. There were those questions you could ask
[in the host guide]. But the conversation was flowing. Our guests didn’t leave until 11pm.

For Elizabeth, a successful dinner was measured by enthusiastic conversation rather than
whether they had covered particular issues.
In a home in an adjacent suburb, Tracy, who co-hosted a meal with her husband
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,
recalled, “We didn’t really get into anything that was confrontational. It was mostly shallow
stuff.” She said the group shared personal experiences and memories, but mostly “talked about
our similarities… we talked about mostly the things we had in common.” Tracy admitted she

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2016 Diversity Dinners Host Training Guide
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“Elizabeth” Author interview. 5/2/16.
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While a few men hosted meals, the majority of hosts were women or couples.
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“was hoping it would stay light.” She shared a story of an uncomfortable experience she had had
having dinner with her boss’ family when she was younger:
And we are all sitting around the table and I was again surprised …that their house was
so much like my house. And I was 22 years old and all of a sudden, wow, this is kind of
cool. You know. And the little boy at the table said, ‘How come her skin is so white?’…
and it just like… He was six maybe. And I was afraid things like that were going to
happen.
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For Tracy, the innocent question of a child drew attention to her whiteness and made her
uncomfortable. She did not talk directly about race with her boss or his wife. They ignored the
boy’s question at that table, and now decades later, Tracy was reluctant to cause anyone to feel
uncomfortable at her own table. For her the acknowledgement of difference was still associated
with unease.
Still, even at dinners where hosts avoided difficult questions and focused on personal
stories, there was some recognition and discussion of difference and the region’s history with
racism and segregation. Arlene, a guest at Elizabeth’s meal, said she appreciated her host’s
efforts:
It was interesting because the host and hostess, they had to go through this class to learn
how to get everyone to talk and open up. The questions were very open-ended. Everyone
got a chance to talk about their background, their schooling, and their family. It was very,
very nice.
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Regarding the sharing of personal experiences, she said, “We talked about what it was like living
in America from an African American standpoint and then from a Caucasian standpoint. And it
was what it was.” Arlene, who was African American, said she got to hear different perspectives
on growing up in a segregated Chicago, like “what it was like for a white boy to walk through a
black neighborhood at a certain time of day being chased.”

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“Tracy” Author interview. 5/16/16.
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“Arlene” Author interview. 5/11/16.
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Getting to the main course: Structural racism
While many of these conversations stayed at the level of individual and interpersonal
prejudice and historical racism, others brought the conversation up to the present day—and
waded deeper into waters of structural racism. Back at Gwen’s table, after some digression and
small talk, Gwen posed a question: Why have we not progressed? She shared her concern that
regarding racism, the country had gone backwards.
Responding to Gwen’s question, Joan, an older white woman pointed to what she called
“living patterns.” She explained that she was raised in an all-white part of Chicago and that while
she had not moved to the South Suburbs seeking diversity, diversity had come to her.
“Diversity,” here, as was often the case, was used as a reference to African Americans. Joan said
that as the demographics of the area changed, she had gradually gotten accustomed to sharing
public spaces with African Americans. But for her white friends who lived in majority white
areas, this was not the case. She illustrated this by telling the group a story of how a friend
reacted when she came out to dinner in her area. Joan said they had been talking and then
suddenly the friend asked what they were doing eating in a restaurant full of Black people. At
that point in the story, several other participants murmured their surprise and concern that a
sentiment like that could be expressed in the recent past. But Joan explained that even today she
had friends who were nervous and uncomfortable coming to the area she lived in. Another white
participant responded by referencing segregation and added that it went “both ways” –saying that
she knew African Americans who didn’t want to venture into adjacent areas in Indiana that had a
reputation for white flight. Joan lamented how over the past 20 years her subdivision had gone
from almost all white to almost all Black. While she liked her community and had no plans to
move, she found this troubling.
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Gwen’s son Anthony took this conversation about personal experiences with segregation
and tried to shift it to an analytical discussion of the structural reasons behind segregation and
racial injustice. He offered his perspective on the U.S. history of exploiting African Americans
for economic gain –from slavery to the prison industrial complex. This led to something of a
debate over who benefited from this exploitation—be it a minority of white people, or all people
perceived as white. James suggested it may have more to do with class, and Joan insisted that it
had nothing to do with race as she herself wasn’t in the 1% either. She then took the discussion
to its most heated point by suggesting that perhaps African Americans should follow the example
of Jewish Americans (she herself was Jewish) and seek economic self-sufficiency by establishing
separate institutions, such as country clubs, rather than fighting to get into white ones. This led
others to object to the idea of separation, and Anthony attempted to explain the history of
African American economic ventures being stamped out by racist violence or unfair economic
and housing policies.
Afterwards, reflecting on the conversation, Anthony said that compared with a previous
dinner he had attended, “I think we got kind of hot at ours.”
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He said he appreciated that there
did seem to be different perspectives present—albeit within a limited range, and not everyone
was equally vocal. Several who attended that dinner noted that they were disappointed, though
not surprised that the students from a local college, who had been required to attend as an
assignment for a sociology class, were largely quiet. Many also expressed their appreciation for
Joan’s participation. Brad said, “Being a wealthier white woman, she clearly was seeing things
differently.” Anthony reflected on how participants responded to these differences:
I think everyone was trying to be cautious not to argue. But I did feel like [Joan] was
trying to at least play a little advocate for the side of herself and some of the people she

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“Anthony”. Author interview. 5/2/16.
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sees. And I felt like it was clear that everyone else, well some other people, were trying to
make sure that, well, they were disagreeing with her in a polite way. …And she didn’t
want to go in too deep with the argument because I don’t think she wanted to offend
anyone.

This sort of self-imposed cautiousness applied to other portions of the discussion as well.
Several participants mentioned the discussion around LGBTQ rights raised by James. James later
expressed frustration that the conversation was “very Black and white.” His partner, Brad,
agreed:
When I thought ‘diversity,’ I thought the idea was it’s just supposed to be about everyone
being different. And the serious main focus of this was very much about white and Black.
And even when people started trying to bring up the fact that, you know, there’s a
difference between rich and poor, you know, there’s a big class difference, immediately
we changed the subject back to Black and white.
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Diversity Dinners did have a stated objective of being open to discussions of diversity beyond
the axis of race. However, the project was started as a reaction to white flight, and the 2016
dinners took place amidst heightened tensions regarding police violence and charged political
rhetoric around race.
Brad and James were not the only ones struggling to grapple with intersectionality.
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Anthony admitted that he did not engage deeply when they had raised issues around LGBTQ
rights because he had concerns with rhetoric that drew equivalences between this movement and
the civil rights movement:
That’s a difficult kind of piece to navigate without stepping on anyone’s toes and at the
same time feeling like you’re being honest about it. Because there are some very real
differences there that get overlooked when you’re talking about both of those struggles.
And I understand that… any groups want policies that improve quality of life and

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“Brad”. Author interview. 4/27/16.
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In addition to the conversation at this meal, many participants expressed sentiments that
revealed a lack of intersectionality—e.g. people of color who supported Black Lives Matter but
not immigrant rights, etc.
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changes things for the better. But that conversation…I just kind of reared away from it…
Because I know it’s difficult to do that tactfully.
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Gwen similarly was cautious in her engagement with this part of the discussion. However, she
expressed appreciation for Brad and James’ participation:
You know what felt good this time for me, is that I’ve never had the experience of having
a gay couple. …Because I am very into my religion and that, and there is a lot that is at
odds with what my religious teaching are. That felt …good. Good and different. Like this
is good. You know, I need to know more.
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For Gwen, the encounter offered a first step of direct exposure across lines of difference.
Not going back for seconds: The limits of agonism
Over the course of the meal at Gwen’s table, there was a substantive conversation about
structural racism and community change. Still Anthony said the conversation could have gone
“further”:
This is our first time meeting everyone. So you’re only going to be so comfortable.
You’re only going to be so open. And even with it being a dinner around diversity and it
being you know set up for you to prompt situations to have conversation about these
issues, you’re only going to go so far.
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This was a common sentiment—that it takes time to get comfortable talking about race with
strangers. Most frequently it was expressed by African American participants who were not sure
their white counterparts were “ready” for what they saw to be difficult truths. Given the structure
of Diversity Dinners, however, guests only had this one meal to interact—even if they
participated the following year, they would be meeting with different people.
This tendency to err on the side of politeness was in spite of Diversity Dinners being
modeled on Chicago Dinners, which had the stated philosophy that an honest conversation would

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“Anthony”. Author interview. 5/2/16.
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“Gwen”. Author interview. 4/25/16.
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“Anthony”. Author interview. 5/2/16.
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by necessity be uncomfortable. But this was a fine line, one committee member explained. While
conflict could be productive, she said, managing conflict was challenging:
I think it’s an environment that should be supportive enough and inclusive enough that
anybody can say whatever it is that’s on their heart. But I think you have to be so careful
because you don’t want anybody to be, to feel like they were offended or they were
isolated …to balance that, having that open discussion without making anybody really so
uncomfortable that they wish that they could get out of there.
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The committee member acknowledged that not every facilitator was well equipped to handle the
challenge of addressing conflict. In a debrief meeting, the committee discussed how some dinner
participants and facilitators were reported to have steered the conversation away from issues of
race. She said that while she was initially surprised to learn this, in her own interactions with
white people, she, as an African American woman, acknowledged wanting to know someone
before talking about difficult issues regarding racial justice:
You just don’t open up a conversation with somebody about that. Like I feel comfortable
saying that to you because you’re here studying the Diversity Dinners. Obviously you’re
not going to go home and go, ‘Ooh I hate those Black people.’ But I think that’s one of
the struggles with the Diversity Dinners. People are like, ‘Ok, who is going to be able to
handle this if I say certain things.’

Because of this dynamic, there was considerable variation in how much participants shared at the
various dinners. Arlene explained that she felt able to speak fairly freely at her dinner because it
was a small mixed group, “Whereas I would not get up in an auditorium of white people and say
what I really feel. I’m sorry. …I don’t want to feel like I’m going to be lynched.”
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This sense of
caution, connected to a very real and not so distant history of racist violence, was expressed by
several participants.

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“Jean”. Author interview. 5/16/16
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“Arlene”. Author interview. 5/11/16.
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While many of the white participants framed the lack of conflict in Diversity Dinners as a
positive attribute, some also expressed a desire to discuss “harder questions.” Gretchen said she
went to a larger dinner with multiple tables with a friend. At her table they discussed, “What was
a difficult encounter you had? And, what was your first experience with discrimination?” But at
her friend’s table, “they just chatted with each other.” She said this made her angry:
I kind of wanted to smack him. And say, ‘You’re missing the whole point.’ …He said,
‘Oh no…The purpose is to just sit there and have dinner.’ And I said, ‘No, that’s not the
purpose. The purpose is to challenge yourself –and to learn from people.’ So to me, that
was a lost opportunity for that table.

There were also participants of color who were not bothered by a lack of discussion of
issues of diversity and racial justice. Melanie, an African American resident, found out about
Diversity Dinners through a flyer at her local library. She said she didn’t mind that her dinner
didn’t get into issues of racial justice:
My goal and objective in going was to meet people from diverse backgrounds. That’s
what I went for, to network and talk a little bit about what I do, pass out cards, and I was
able to do that, so it didn’t bother me at all that we didn’t talk about diversity.
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Allen, who identified as Asian, said he also mostly saw the Dinner as an interesting networking
opportunity. He explicitly did not see the benefit of talking about diversity:
Most likely they talk about the problems, not the solutions… ‘Oh because the Blacks hate
the whites, Asians’…The more you talk about problem—the more problem you get.
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Caramel cake and colorblindness
Part of the tension between recognizing difference and focusing on a universalist human
sameness lie in the very mission of Diversity Dinners to “acknowledge similarities as well as

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“Melanie” Author interview. 5/5/16.
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“Allen” Author interview. 4/22/16.
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appreciate difference.”
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As Bonila-Silva (2006) argued, narratives of colorblind universalism
often resulted in obscuring structural racism—even if they carried an idealistic intent.
There was an abundance of these references to a common humanity (e.g. “We’re all
people.”) at Diversity Dinners tables—and even among the planning committee itself. One
committee member, Carol, shared her hope that through discussion, “We realized that we are all
alike.” She explained that the experience of eating in the home of a person of a different
background should underline this sameness:
Basically we want the same things. We want good education for our kids. We want to be
safe. We want to have experiences. …How do we get to know each other… and realize
that there’s nothing different about us.

Carol, who was white, went on to illustrate how her view of a shared humanity could erase
difference. Referring to her fellow committee members who were African American, she said:
I don’t think of them as African American. … I don’t look at this one and say, ‘Oh she’s
Black. I said, that’s [name of other committee member]. She’s my friend. Same thing
with [another committee member’s name], I say, ‘I don’t think of you as Black.’

To Carol, this colorblindness was a positive thing—not a negation of identity.
However, several African American committee members expressed that for them,
“celebrating the differences and acknowledging the differences”
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was central to the purpose of
Diversity Dinners. Even within the group’s planning committee, there was not a universal
understanding of why colorblind “post-racial” rhetoric might be problematic—for example there
were different understandings of what was implied by the “All Lives Matter” campaign, and
whether it was a problematic response to the Movement for Black Lives.

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2016 Diversity Dinners Host Training Guide
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“Lorraine” Author interview. 7/27/16.
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For many white committee members and participants, the idea that race or ethnicity could
offer a positive source of identity was abstract and outside of their experience. Few spoke of
reflexively grappling with whiteness or white privilege or even thinking of themselves as white.
For example, while demonstrating an icebreaker exercise at a meeting, an African American
committee member talked about her identity as an African American woman being a source of
strength. In response, a white committee member talked about her own identity as a grandmother
and mother. For white participants, thinking about whiteness was optional and not obvious. As a
result, there were varied and at times contradictory positions regarding how much of Diversity
Dinner’s emphasis should be on understanding and recognizing difference.
Table Talks
An in-demand reservation: Getting a seat at the table
“Friends we hadn’t met yet.”
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That’s what Jackie called the ten or so people who came
to her table on Martin Luther King day in 2016. Jackie, a former alderman, said she had always
liked “the pleasure of cooking for a group.” This group was the inaugural Table Talks dinner, a
pilot initiative started by the City of Evanston and Evanston’s Human Relations Commission.
According to their recruitment flyer, the dinners aimed to give residents an opportunity to
“discuss topics of community importance,” and “to strengthen relations among diverse groups of
residents by allowing them to meet and build relationships with other residents they have not met
and would likely not otherwise meet under normal circumstances.”
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“Jackie” Author interview. 6/16/16
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Table Talks recruitment flyer:
http://www.cityofevanston.org/assets/Evanston%20Table%20Talk%20Flyer%20-
%20Fillable%20Form.pdf Retrieved 4/7/18.
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Alberto, the city staffer who initiated the project and coordinated with the Human
Relations Committee to organize it, explained how they had recruited Evanston residents to
come to Jackie’s table. Basing their model on a similar initiative in Oak Park
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, they posted on
various city listservs and within two weeks had nearly a hundred requests to join a dinner.
Residents who expressed an interest were then asked to complete a form sharing more
information about their age group, race, occupation, and ward. Alberto used this to try and
design an intentionally diverse mix of diners:
We want people to meet each other. In any community, you have people that congregate
in certain circles—most likely with people who have the same opinions and beliefs as
them. And they tend to stick away from, you know, if you’re in more affluent
neighborhood, you’re less likely to associate yourself with people in a less affluent
neighborhood—with probably different political beliefs and religious beliefs.
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For the first dinner, Alberto selected eight of the ninety-something aspiring participants. In
addition to these residents, a few representatives from the human relations commission and
himself would join, along with the alderman’s family.
Alberto explained that once the guests were confirmed, he would then share with them
articles intended to prompt discussion. Because the first dinner was held on MLK day, he wanted
participants to discuss race and racism. However, Alberto had some hesitations:
I thought the topic of racism… it’s a really strong topic. And it’s one that’s going to get
people, I don’t want to say riled up, but it’s one that people are going to be a bit
passionate about… have strong opinions…So I wanted to go a little milder …so I
thought, ok maybe we can go with stereotypes and biases.

Seeking what he saw as a less volatile way to discuss racism, Alberto shared a series of three
articles with participants. One opinion piece, from the suburb of Oak Park, shared a local man’s

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As discussed in the introduction, Oak Park’s Dinner and Dialogue
98
project was based on the
Chicago Dinners model.
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“Alberto” Author interview. 1/27/17.
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concern about not having more friendship across boundaries of race.
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Another looked at
implicit bias with an emphasis on gender stereotypes,
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while a third focused on the idea of
“bias-free communication” across a range of identity categories.
102

Alberto explained that in addition to connecting residents to each other, a key goal of the
Human Relations Commission, the city sought to use Table Talks to inform Evanston’s equity
initiative. He hoped participants could weigh in on things “the city can do to help” regarding
racism and bias, particularly in the realm of education, but perhaps more broadly. He wanted to
get residents’ input “and then report that back to the city”—hoping it would help the city make
budgetary decisions through an “equity lens.”
103

Dinner with a side of light facilitation
When Kyoko first got a note about Table Talks in her City of Evanston LGBTQ listserv,
she was on the fence about participating. “Do I really want to say, ‘Yes, I’m interested’?” She
had a history of involvement in groups working on multiculturalism and diversity, and she
herself identified as Asian and white and bi-sexual. Kyoko had also moved to Evanston four
years ago, and was eager to deepen her understanding of the community. But at first, the idea
made her a little anxious: “Once I got over the initial fear of what does this mean to go to
somebody’s house I’ve never been to and meet a bunch of people I’d never met—once I was
there it was exactly what I hoped it would be.”
104

100
Retrieved 4/7/17: http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/12-7-2010/What's-going-on-
here%3F-Am-I-a-racist%3F/
101
Retrieved 4/7/17: http://www.aauw.org/2014/08/13/why-stereotypes-are-bad/
102
Retrieved 4/7/17: http://www.canr.msu.edu/od/uploads/files/Civil_Rights/Bias-
Free_Communication_2009.pdf
103
“Alberto” Author interview. 1/27/17.
104
“Kyoko” Author interview. 5/21/16
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Kyoko joined the very first Table Talk, gathering around Jackie’s table on MLK Day.
After some appetizers and wine, the group sat down around a large table. Jackie invited everyone
to introduce themselves, and to share in two or three words how they identified themselves. She
said she tried to use this to start a conversation about “the gap between how we identify
ourselves and how others identify us.”
105
For Kyoko, the conversation started with ease:
We were a pretty interesting cross-section of people from Evanston who already are
involved in diversity work. So it felt very comfortable just to dive right into the
conversation because you felt like you were talking to people, who had already been
along the journey.
106

Alberto also agreed that the conversation felt “natural.” In fact he was somewhat
surprised by the extent people were willing to share very personal and sensitive experiences from
their lives with people they had just met. Though, he suggested there was “room for
improvement” regarding facilitation: “The discussion went all over the place. It was basically
where people took it. And we didn’t really touch on the discussion questions at all.”
107
Jackie
acknowledged that she had facilitated “very lightly” and that they had not adhered strictly to the
topics of Alberto’s articles: “We didn’t stick too closely to the prompts. Because once the
conversation got going you didn’t want to, ‘Oh here’s our agenda, let’s get back to the agenda.’”
Despite the fluid nature of the conversation, Jackie felt the discussion had been fruitful. She said
the only thing potentially difficult was that people were called on to listen: “There was one
person who wanted to talk a lot… Everyone was patient, and everyone listened. And I think
everyone walked out feeling as though the conversation was rich.”

105
“Jackie” Author interview. 6/16/16
106
“Kyoko” Author interview. 5/21/16
107
“Alberto” Author interview. 1/27/17.
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This was the case for Kyoko. She appreciated the opportunity to discuss identity issues,
and to share what Evanston does well and could do better: “We could just say openly, here’s
what we get frustrated about. And here’s what we’re excited to see happening. …it felt like an
opportunity to push ideas, or put ideas out there.” For one of the Human Relations
commissioners, however, veering from the planned discussion topics meant they had missed an
opportunity to systematically gather residents’ ideas and concerns. He wanted to get residents’
perspectives on issues like the racial achievement gap in Evanston High School, a topic that was
a point of much controversy and debate at the time.
108
He was disappointed when instead the
conversation “turned into an Evanston High School love-fest.”
109
He had hoped participants
would have been more critical and shared ideas that could contribute to policy. But given it was
“such an uncomfortable topic,” he appreciated even broaching the conversation may have made a
positive contribution to community relations.
These differing expectations of facilitation did not resolve by the second dinner. Despite
having a new group of participants and a new host, some of the same issues arose, according to
Mina, one of the participating diners. She explained they had been given several articles about
questions regarding equity and economic justice:
So our host, he like tried. (laughs) During the appetizer part, he did bring it up, and tried
to get us to discuss it. But people just ended up telling their own anecdotes. And I think
eventually he gave up. And that was fine. Because the conversation was still on topic, just
not on the topic of the arguments made in the articles.
110

As a Korean American student interested in the issue of policing, Mina paid particular attention
when an African American guest shared her experience of how she had received unfair treatment

108
An example of media coverage the achievement gap had received:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-america-divided/education/
109
Human Relations Commissioner. Author interview. 2/2/16.
110
“Mina” Author interview. 5/27/16.
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by the police. Several of the white participants spoke up to say, “we need to fix that,” said Mina:
“We didn’t come up with a solution but I felt like it was still healing…to know that not all white
people were against them.”
Mina noted that while there were points in the conversation that “almost got heated,” the
fact that they had just met meant that participants “did restrain their opinions a little bit.” She
also noted dynamics of who was given the floor to share experiences:
I felt like it was mostly, and I’m not saying it is wrong, the women of color, I think they
would talk about their experiences and opinions and everyone else would just kind of
agree. And they would point out other things to support that.

Despite the lack of an interventionist facilitator, in Mina’s experience, the conversation still
managed to delve into issues of difference and racial justice—albeit dependent upon the
anecdotal personal experiences of participants.
No dessert: Table Talks’ abrupt end
Table Talks had been intended to run as a three-part pilot, and possibly beyond. There
was a long waiting list of interested participants, and several who were lucky enough to get to a
table spoke of hopes for follow up engagement. However, the series ended after only two
dinners. Alberto, the city staffer who had founded the project, changed jobs, moving to a
different city. The volunteer-run Human Relations Commission did not maintain the project.
Complicating matters, the Human Relations Commission itself was merged in a process aiming
to reduce the relatively large number of boards, commissions and committees in Evanston.
111

The Human Relations Commission was combined with the Housing and Homelessness
Commission and the ADA Advisory Committee, to make a Housing and Human Relations

111
http://evanstonnow.com/story/government/bill-smith/2016-06-20/75457/aldermen-get-plan-
to-consolidate-boards
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Commission. So while city government birthed the Table Talks initiative, the complexities of its
internal politics and bureaucratic wranglings prevented it from transitioning into a sustainable
program.
Meal Sharing
From Cambodia to Chicago, many paths to the table
Jay Savsani was traveling in Cambodia when he arrived at the idea of Meal Sharing.
After several underwhelming dinners in overpriced tourist restaurants, he decided he wanted to
experience food that was more “real”. So he went to the front desk of his hotel: “I told the
manager I’d like to have a home-cooked meal in somebody’s home.” Savsani said he thought he
might be met with resistance, but the manager was enthusiastic. Later that night, he and his
friends were sitting in the home of a hotel employee, eating “authentic” Cambodian dishes and
talking about “everything from Michael Jackson to Obama to Pol Pot”.
112
Returning home to
Chicago, Savsani decided to make a digital platform to recreate what he called “facilitated
serendipity” –offering users the opportunity to connect with strangers who would like to share
food and conversation in their homes while traveling or within their own communities. In early
2013, the new start-up, Meal Sharing, took on the mission of “bringing communities together
through food”.
I first met Savsani, in a rather frenetic kitchen, a few months after the company had
launched. Stirring a bowl of peanut sauce, he was helping to prep a meal in the home of a fellow
Chicago meal sharer. I have subsequently observed Meal Sharing dinners held in Cleveland and
Los Angeles, as well as Chicago—and the platform has spread to more than 450 cities around the
globe. Unlike Diversity Dinners or Table Talks, Meal Sharing is a for-profit company that sees

112
Savsani, Jay. Interview by author. Chicago, June 2, 2013.
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itself as part of the ‘sharing economy’ model. While it began as the ‘couch surfing’ of food (and
involved many participants who also did couch surfing), it has grown into something closer to
the AirBnB of food. Instead of free meals, when hosts post a meal for participants to sign up to,
they now charge a ‘chip-in fee’ (usually in the range of $15-$20) of which Meal Sharing takes
10% to fund the platform.
While Meal Sharing had no explicit mission to discuss issues of racial justice, Savsani
did at least initially start the group with a mission to use meals to build community and
understanding across lines of culture and difference. Because Meal Sharing was headquartered in
Chicago, and had regular meals there, I examined who was going to these meals and what
emerged from their unstructured conversations regarding issues of race and difference.
“That was like a leap of faith,” Trisha said of her first time going to a meal share. She
explained she hadn’t know anyone else going but the food looked really good and the host had
five reviews:
So I was like, okay, I’m going to do this. It sounds scary, but I’m going to do this. I think
…the people who do Meal Sharing are typically adventurous people, and they are very
open minded.

Trisha first found out about Meal Sharing on Facebook. She thought it looked like an interesting
thing to do when traveling, and she eventually tried it out on her own trip to Rome. But mostly
Trisha had been eating in Chicago. Since her first time at a Meal Sharing table, she went on to
attend some 35 meals. Like a fair number of Chicago Meal Sharing participants, she became a
Meal Sharing regular. She started to see some of the same people at multiple meals, and even
made plans and hung out with some of them outside of formal Meal Sharing channels.
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Toast, eggs, racialized space and identity
I met Trisha at her home as she was about to host a
Meal Sharing brunch. Her apartment was spotless and her table
was set with fresh flowers. Soon the other guests arrived,
admiring her view looking out over her Northside Chicago
neighborhood. Three of the guests were visitors from New
York City. The local Chicago residents chatted with them about
their impressions of the city so far, especially where they had
gone for food, and where they hoped to go next. Two of the
other Chicago-based guests knew Trisha from past meal shares. They caught up on life
developments like travel plans and mutual friends.
Trisha lured the group to the table with baked eggs, toast, salad, and mimosas. With
napkins on laps and drinks in hand, the conversation jumped around from debates over pizza to
one of the guest’s CrossFit obsession. The Chicago-based guests took turns offering tips to the
three visitors on good places to explore. At one point the question of safety arose. Several of the
Chicagoans suggested the visitors would be better off not visiting the predominantly African
American Southside. They explained how Hyde Park was essentially an island that was safe and
had restaurants and other amenities, but that the visitors really had, “no reason to go South.” One
of the guests, Dan, another frequent Meal Sharer, explained later why he advised the visitors to
avoid the Southside of Chicago even though he lived in that area. He said while he felt
comfortable going, “Am I going to recommend somebody else go down there? Nah.” Regarding
Figure 14. Meal Sharing
table of “Trisha”
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the tourists from New York, he said, “Don’t go down there. You have no idea where you are, for
one thing, and just don’t.”
113

Notably, participation in Meal Sharing was not distributed evenly throughout Chicago.
The majority of hosts organized meals either on the Northside, near Westside, or Downtown.
The few meals on the Southside were usually within the vicinity of Hyde Park. However some
participants spoke about going to at least one meal that took place in a community center in the
Southwest Back of the Yards neighborhood hosting guests from Tunisia (meals usually take
place in private homes but are occasionally held in communal spaces). Several also commented
on how Meal Sharing took them to neighborhoods they wouldn’t otherwise have gone to.
Back at Trisha’s brunch, where additional toast was shared, at some point a conversation
about breakfast led one of the New York visitors to reflect on their fondness for Dominican
breakfast foods, and how it connected them to their own Dominican identity. The conversation
then somehow snaked into a discussion of racism in the Dominican Republic directed towards
Haitians, and then to generational attitude differences towards race—particularly ones that arose
when parents objected to dating across lines of race and culture.
Interestingly after the meal, Trisha expressed surprise that they had ended up talking
about race. She said that was the first meal she could think of where race had come up. I asked
her why she thought it had not come up in the past:
I don’t know. I think it’s simply because most of the people I’ve met have been really
opened minded and they have friends, and they’ve met friends from different cultures that
they don’t even think about that anymore. Like the subject of race rarely comes up.

For Trisha, herself a Filipina, talking about race was something that did not happen in the
cosmopolitan circles of Meal Sharing. She said it was common for conversations about food and

113
“Dan” Author interview. 5/28/16.
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travel to lead participants to “admire the differences between cultures,” but conversations about
race, like conversations about politics, were generally absent.
Post-racial progressives and political indigestion
Trisha’s observation about the relative rarity of discussions of race and racial justice, and
her use of almost post-racial rhetoric, was echoed by numerous Meal Sharing participants I
spoke with. Another participant, Cary, who identified as white, said he liked that Meal Sharing
conversations didn’t get into issues of race:
Because it’s unnecessary. It’s silly. Why do we need to talk about race, ever? Then
you’re like, well, you can’t just ignore it because it’s there. It’s all around me. Yeah.
Especially with politics right now.

His wavering reflected a tension expressed by many white progressives I spoke with. Cary
looked at Chicago in comparison with where he had grown up, a more conservative part of
Illinois where he still had family. He argued Meal Sharing would never work there because they
“don’t want a bunch of complete strangers of all ethnicities in their house,” but Chicago was
different:
Like as Chicagoans we tend to be more open minded. Do I dare say that? About race
and other different ethical things. Yeah. So I think we’re likeminded people that just
don’t need to talk about that, because again, people think we’re crazy that we’re inviting
strangers to our house too to eat.

For Cary, while other people might need to talk about race, progressive Chicagoans did not.
In the meals I had been to, I similarly observed a lack of discussion around issues of race
and racial justice. While it was common to discuss the cultural origins of food, or to recollect a
dish savored while traveling abroad, the only other meal sharing conversation I could recall
directly addressing race was a guest who told an anecdote about a restaurant facing a backlash
for an ill-conceived marketing campaign, “black olives matter.” Perhaps notably, at Trisha’s
meal, five of the seven participants present were people of color. While most of the other meals I
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attended had participants from a range of backgrounds, they had still been either majority white
or at least evenly divided. However, I did not observe a large enough number of meals to be able
to definitively conclude how the ethnic/racial balance of participants influenced the likelihood or
openness to discussing matters of race. As will be discussed in the following chapter, while these
issues were present in popular discourse and current events in Chicago at the time of this study,
many study participants expressed a reluctance to discuss them in ethnically or racially mixed
company.
Of course a key difference between Meal Sharing and Diversity Dinners or Table Talks
was its lack of facilitation. While both Diversity Dinners and Table Talks could vary in the
degree to which they were facilitated, there was at least some expectation of a shared discussion.
Meal Sharing, however, functioned more akin to a dinner party. There was no discussion leader,
apart from the host possibly explaining what the various food items were and any cultural
significance to them. Depending on the size of the meal and the layout of the furniture, there
might be one common conversation or several fragmented conversations. If the table was long,
you might not interact with a guest at the opposite end. Some guests would know another person
there, others would not know anyone. The result was generally a relaxed and natural string of
conversations, but they were conversations which were unpredictable in topic and tone.
Most Meal Sharing participants, nevertheless, seemed to share an understanding of
conversation topics to be avoided. For most, politics were on this list. As Tricia explained,
politics at the table could lead to “indigestion.” Anna, a frequent host, said she did not like
discussing politics at her table because people could be “stubborn.” While she did not formally
facilitate, as a host, she tried to take responsibility overall for limiting arguments:
I think even if you’re a host, if you see that people go in an argument like that, you
should try to go out of it. Because it’s just not suitable for a table with so many different
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kinds of people, different kinds of minds, different kinds of backgrounds –are sitting and
eating and just enjoying a meal. So I think there’s so many different kinds of things we
can talk about. We don’t have to talk about something we don’t agree, you know?
114

Several participants spoke of self-policing around politics. Dan, who participated in Trisha’s
meal, said he was wary about discussing politics. At the meal, he had accidentally brought up
Trump’s name:
I very quickly wanted to steer away from it because I didn’t want to get into it. I don’t
know how people feel about it, …and I don’t really care, I guess. But I don’t want to find
out that they’re, you know. Because …then I start to do what we always do. I start to
judge them based on that and all my preconceptions about how they feel about something
are going to come into play.
115

While no political arguments emerged at Tricia’s table, they have occurred elsewhere. Stacy said
that generally regarding politics, “everybody has the common sense not to bring it up” –but not
always:
This woman, said something like, well I’m voting for Donald Trump. And I said, ‘You’re
fucking kidding right?’ …Because I thought she was kidding. (laughs) And unfortunately
it started a huge… I wouldn’t call it a fight exactly, but it was an uncomfortable
exchange.
116

For most participants, agonistic disagreement was avoided, not embraced.
Another factor with Meal Sharing was that among participants there was considerable
variation in why people came and what they expected to take away from the experience. Most
participants said they first joined Meal Sharing as a way to meet new people. Among meal
sharers who had been participating for years, many expressed a sense of connection to Meal
Sharing as a community. As Dan explained, it wasn’t really important what the food was or
where the meals were held:

114
“Anna” Author interview. 5/20/16
115
“Dan” Author interview. 5/28/16
116
“Stacy” Author interview. 5/21/16
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I’ve been to some places, you know, where it’s in a very small apartment with, you know,
in a bad neighborhood. I’ve had just as much fun at that place as I had at the fancy place,
because the people are who I’m there for. Not even the food—it’s the people. …I can go
get food anywhere. I go for the people.

Some of the newer participants spoke of Meal Sharing more as a transactional platform, and
tended to have differing attitudes towards the professionalization of hosting. Savsani started
Meal Sharing with the slogan that hosts should embrace the motto of, “make what you make.”
117

He argued that cooking skills should not be a barrier to hosting, and that the goal was for people
to experience what others were cooking on an ordinary day—even if it was a peanut butter and
jelly sandwich. However, several of the newer hosts saw themselves as chefs or at least skilled
home cooks—and some charged considerably more than was common at earlier stages in the
platform. Fewer in this latter category discussed the communal elements of Meal Sharing—or
spending time with fellow participants outside of formal meals.
Lessons learned: Agonism, colorblindness and conviviality
Whether eating chicken and rice in the South Suburbs, sipping wine with appetizers in
the North Suburbs, or digging into curry and couscous in downtown Chicago, Diversity Dinners,
Table Talks, and Meal Sharing can all be categorized as falling into Georgiou’s second level of
conviviality. Participants chose to meet and eat with one another voluntarily, and they seemed to
recognize each others’ “right to the city.” But the engagement offered by the meals was either
ephemeral, fell short of a standard of “mutual care,” or both. Moving to the next, and highest,
level of conviviality required “a politics of civic engagement and solidarity” (Georgiou, 2016).
Based on my findings, I offer the following observations and recommendations regarding
strategies and circumstances which might be conducive to creating more convivial spaces:

117
Savsani, Jay. Interview by author. Chicago, June 2, 2013.
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Colorblindness is common. Narratives of colorblindness (Bonila-Silva, 2006) were
common among participants of all three groups. Some version of “everyone has to eat” was often
linked to an idea that we are all the “same.” This colorblind rhetoric often obscured differences
within the presumed ‘choir’ of progressives. A number of participants who expressed this
sentiment, both white and people of color, also used post-racial rhetoric including ‘All Lives
Matter.’ Many of these participants also emphasized individualistic ‘solutions’ for social ills
based on principles of meritocracy (e.g. education, personal responsibility, better parenting, etc.).
Agonism is needed to confront colorblindness. As Amin (2002) argued, contentious
debate is valuable in its ability to “make transparent reasons for resentment and
misunderstanding.” In these three cases, politeness norms often pushed participants towards
universalist rhetoric regarding a common humanity that masked differences, rather than
acknowledging differences and confronting structural explanations for racial injustice and white
supremacy.
Productive agonism is more likely with repeat meetings. A frequent refrain, particularly
among participants in both Diversity Dinners and Table Talks, was an unwillingness to wade
deeper into sensitive and potentially disagreeable waters with fellow participants they had just
met. Getting to know fellow diners over time might allow participants to build the trust needed
for what Allen called “political friendship” and a “democratic treatment of disagreement” (Allen,
2006, p.63).
Facilitation is critical. Facilitation was perhaps the most important factor in determining
the outcome of discussions in these projects. Both Diversity Dinner and Table Talks relied on
volunteer facilitators. In the case of Diversity Dinners, hosts received a brief training and a
guidebook. But overall there seemed to be an under valuing of facilitation as a skill—with more
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emphasis going on how to make participants welcome as hosts. When volunteer facilitators had
different understandings of their role, the resulting discussion could either delve into complex
questions of racial justice, or stay confined to stories about childhood or small talk about work
and family. Even if participants were given reading materials to focus discussion in advance, as
in the case of Table Talks, facilitation was required for those topics to be addressed. In the
absence of a trained facilitator, the depth of conversation could vary dramatically based on the
participants present (as even some un-facilitated Meal Sharing meals had spontaneous
discussions that got into substantive issues). Facilitating respectful but meaningful conversations
around racial justice is a complicated craft. Many facilitation traditions emphasize the sharing of
individual experiences and stories, and this can establish a valuable and humanizing base of
understanding, particularly in heterogeneous groups. However, to move to the higher level of
conviviality, with a politics of solidarity, more analytical and political conversations may be
needed.
Of course there is a potential trade off in pursuing such a higher level of conviviality.
Shifting towards more agonistic dialogue with trained facilitators may not to appeal to everyone
in groups where there is a broad base of participants who often come to the table with varied
motives and expectations. Groups would need to be clear about the population they seek to
engage and adjust accordingly. If they decide to take this path, they may need to adjust how
meals are organized—whether there could be a series of meals over time with facilitation styles
changing to fit corresponding objectives—e.g. from initial meals focused on building empathy
and trust, to meals exploring uncomfortable truths regarding how participants are implicated in
systems of racism and privilege, to meals focused on coalition building and action. At present
there is often a mismatch or muddiness of objectives and strategies employed. Groups seeking to
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continue to develop and build upon the structures and networks they have built would do well to
clarifying such goals.
Finally, particularly in politically charged moments, these strategies need to be mindful
of how participants think about communicating across lines of difference and interpersonal
networks when contentious issues arise both around the table and away from it, the focus of the
following chapter.

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CHAPTER 5
Talking across divides

When Chris and his family moved West from their South Suburban community, they
followed a common ‘white flight’ trail—shifting from a predominantly African American area to
a predominantly white one. But Chris and his family are themselves African American. Chris
said he was attracted to the good reputation of the schools, and how his kids did not have to lock
their bikes when they rode them to said school. He shared positive encounters he had with his
new neighbors and how impressed he was with how the block coordinated Halloween activities
(treats for the kids and cocktails for the parents). But he was not interested in talking with them
about issues of race.
“I would never approach those conversations with them because there’s neighbors by me
with confederate flags on display and shit,”
118
Chris explained. He said in recent years he had
frequently heard troubling rhetoric about race in the workplace. He gave the example of
colleagues responding to speeches made by Obama with offensive remarks. Generally, Chris said
he avoided engaging in these conversations, because when he did get drawn in, “I can be totally
honest, and a lot of times, specifically with race people just don’t understand my frame of
reference.”
Like Chris, Marissa also avoided conversations about race with people from different
backgrounds. In particular, Marissa, a white woman, explained that she avoided talking about her
“mixed feelings” about the Black Lives Matter movement with African Americans. While she
thought the movement had “potential to be something very productive,” she was concerned when
she saw protests “turn violent” and felt there was a lack of leadership. But she was clear that she

118
“Chris” Author interview. 5/12/16.
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did not want to talk about this with African Americans: “I don’t want them to think that I’m like
racist because I say that I don’t think the Black Lives Matter Movement is good for the
community.”
119

Chris and Marissa’s reluctance to talk across boundaries of difference, and belief that
they would be misunderstood, reflected the perspective of many, though not all, study
participants. In this chapter, I examine what factors affected participants’ willingness to discuss
contentious issues—including the Black Lives Matter movement and political rhetoric on race,
and political rhetoric on immigration—with members of demographic and political outgroups. I
categorize participants as talking to outgroups about contentious issues 1) never/almost never, 2)
about one of these issues, and 3) about multiple contentious issues. I look at whether there are
any patterns among participants’ reported characteristics—including their seeking of culinary
difference, voluntary personal or associational outgroup ties, age, and geography. I then offer
case examples from each category to illustrate some of the barriers and facilitators to discussion
across lines of difference, and themes including access and attitudes towards conflict.
Looking at participants from all three food-related initiatives and the other area residents
referred by these participants, some trends in how people reported interacting on sensitive issues
emerged (see Table 4). While most participants spoke with outgroup members about at least one
contentious issue regarding race or immigration, a considerable number reported never doing so.
This was more likely for older participants and residents of the South Suburbs. Comparing the
South Suburbs with Chicago, where the number of participants were fairly similar, 55% of the 29

119
“Marissa” Author interview. 5/26/16.
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South Suburb participants reported never discussing contentious issues compared to only 22% of
the 23 Chicago residents.

Participants who reported not talking about contentious issues with outgroups were also
less likely to have reported seeking out food from different cultures—with an average culinary
difference seeking score of 1.9 (versus 2.4 for those who spoke about at least one issue, or 2.7 for
those who spoke about multiple issues). Counter to what would be predicted based on
Varshney’s (2002) findings, having associational ties across lines of difference did not seem to
correlate with being more or less likely to discuss contentious issues with people of different
backgrounds. However, those who reported talking with outgroups about sensitive issues were
more likely to report having personal or social ties (romantic partnerships, friendships, etc.) with
outgroup members. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those who reported speaking with outgroup members
about multiple sensitive issues had a voluntary personal/social ties score of 2.4 versus those who
reported always avoiding contentious discussion who had a score of 1.25. And of course, in some
cases, associational ties had become personal ties.
Among those who reported speaking about one issue but not others (for example being
willing to talk about immigration but not Black Lives Matters or political rhetoric about race or
Outgroup
interaction
Total
(N=
57)
African
American
(N=17)
white
(N=28
)
Latina
(N=1)
Asian
(N=5)
Other
(N=6)
South
Suburb
s
(N=29)
Chicago
(N=23)
Evan
ston
(N=5)
Ave.
Age

Never/almost
never
22 8 12 0 1 1 16 5 1 55
About one
issues
20 4 9 1 3 3 8 10 2 39.5
About
multiple
issues
15 5 7 0 1 2 5 8 2 38
Table 4. Outgroup interaction on contentious issues-Demographics

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vice versa), Chicago residents were more well represented than residents of the South
Suburbs.
120
Many reported access to a particular outgroup but not others (e.g. immigrants but not
African Americans, etc.), or comfort with the sensitivities of one issue but not another. Those
who reported speaking about multiple contentious issues tended to be from Chicago, younger,
more likely to be people of color, or to have substantial intergroup relationships or family ties.
Silence on race and immigration
Desire without access
Like many who reported not talking to outgroups about controversial issues, Gwen said
her problem was one of access. Gwen was retired. “My world has really shrunk, since I’m home
a lot,” she explained. She said in the past, she had conversations with coworkers from different
backgrounds that were able to productively “veer off into that place.” But now, as a resident of
the South Suburbs, her social circles were exclusively African American—and this was a source
of concern:
Sometimes I think when you talk only to people of your own race, there is not a lot of
progress there. Because you guys are kinda talking about the same stuff and it’s the circle
that goes around. But the changes won’t be made until you kind of step outside and
share.
121

For Gwen, the desire to connect across boundaries was there, but the practical barriers to
interacting with outgroup members were considerable. White flight meant that even if she
wanted to seek out non-African Americans to socialize with, there were fewer people in
proximity available. She did participate in the Diversity Dinners, and expressed an appreciation
of the experience. However, while several of the guests she hosted in spring of 2016 expressed

120
Because the population size of Evanston was so small, it is beyond the scope of this study to
make direct comparisons between it and the other geographic areas.
121
“Gwen” Author interview. 4/25/16.
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intentions to follow up and connect beyond that evening, a year later she reported she never
heard from them and she herself had not followed up. The realities of daily life for Gwen, who
spent a considerable amount of time on health issues and family obligations, meant very
deliberate action would be required for her to communicate across boundaries of race or culture.
It was only a short drive between Gwen’s home and Tracy’s home, but neither woman
had met. Sitting in her dining room in an adjacent suburb, Tracy, who is white and semi-retired,
nearly broke into tears discussing the Black Lives Matter movement. “A mom loses a kid, it’s a
kid,” she said referencing some of the recent police killings of unarmed Black young people.
Tracy was also upset about how people of color were valued in Chicago more broadly:
There’s so many parts of this city that we’ve kind of said, forget those people. They don’t
matter. They’re disposable people. Mexican people are good for cleaning tables and
toilets. Ok. Get rid of them. Chinese people. Well we don’t want to deal with them. All
these people that we don’t want to deal with.
122

But Tracy said she never talked about these issues with people of color, because neither she nor
her husband interacted with people of color. She said she could “name on one hand” the
experiences she had had talking about race or having meaningful interactions with people from
different racial backgrounds. Apart from Diversity Dinners events, where conversations rarely
got into heavy contemporary issues of race and politics, Tracy struggled to think of interactions
she had with people who were not white. She recalled how she used to host regular gatherings
with other former teachers: “There was one Mexican lady. No Black ladies. And a couple Jewish
ladies. But they didn’t like it when they sang Christmas songs at Christmas. …But that’s about it.
We didn’t have much diversity.”

122
“Tracy” Author interview. 5/16/16.
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Tracy said that they lived next to an African American couple, but they never socialized
apart from an occasional chat in the yard. Her husband added that their neighborhood had grown
and become more diverse, but its sense of social connection had declined:
We had several years we’d have all area picnic together. Stuff like that. Now it’s you
drive in you push the button, garage door goes up. Drive in push the button. And you’re
home but nobody can tell you’re home.
123

The patterns of car-centric suburban life, particularly now that their children were grown, added
to other barriers to interaction. Tracy concurred, “We’re not neighborly. We’re busy doing other
things, being out and about.” So while Tracy cared about issues facing outgroup members, she
did not actively create opportunities to interact with people of color. She would happily
participate in organized associational activities like Diversity Dinners, but she did not take the
initiative to create connections in her own social life.
Despite their limitations, both Gwen and Tracy at least expressed an interest in
connecting more and engaging in dialogue across boundaries of difference. In contrast, there was
a smaller number of participants whose lack of interaction had more to do with ideological
beliefs—including a relative of Tracy’s who had much more conservative views and was
dismissive of the Black Lives Matter movement. Still, especially for residents who were no
longer in the workforce, the dynamics of segregation in their region combined with the realities
of suburban living meant even those who felt positively about interacting often failed to mount
the deliberate investment of effort required to do so.
“Parallel realities”: isolation in proximity
This lack of interaction and perceived lack of access to outgroups was not only an issue
in the South Suburbs. While downtown Chicago attracted a diverse range of residents from

123
“Steve” Author interview. 5/16/16.
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around the region, particularly during working hours, this did not translate into diverse networks
among the white study participants who lived there. As Stacy said, “It’s very sad but I really
don’t know very many African Americans.”
124
The only African American she could think of in
her social circle was a person from Meal Sharing—but her encounters with him were limited to
Meal Sharing meals.
125
As discussed earlier, substantive conversations about race or politics
were rare in the Meal Sharing context, and overall these participants did not report talking about
contentious issues across lines of difference.
“I’ll tell you a theory I’ve had for a long time,” said Keith, another white downtown
resident who did not report speaking with people of color about contentious issues. He explained
what he called his “theory of parallel realties.” Keith shared how while living in California’s Bay
Area, he had observed that he would frequently run into people he knew at restaurants. He also
noted who he wasn’t running into, in terms of class and demographics: “I would run into doctors
but I wouldn’t run into nurses. Similarly, I would never run into most minorities. And yet there
are all these other parallel universes that exist simultaneously.” Keith said he tried to shift his
own behavior by going to different places where he thought he might run into different people.
He said in some ways this worked—he would see categories of people he hadn’t seen previously.
But there were limitations:
I could go there, and I’d feel perfectly comfortable, but developing friendships is a
difficult process. And it’s time consuming and you have to be constantly exposed to the
same people. And there was just no opportunity really to be exposed to the same people
multiple times. There wasn’t enough commonality to say hey let’s get together.
126

124
“Stacy” Author interview. 5/21/16.
125
Several white Meal Sharing participants spoke of this same person as one of their only
contacts.
126
“Keith” Author interview. 6/30/16.
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Now living in Chicago, Keith said groups like Meal Sharing could act as “baby steps” to connect
people. But he said he had essentially given up on making meaningful connections through
cross-cultural culinary exploration.
My life experience is just so different for the most part from, you know, from the
minorities. At this point I think the best I can do is to treat everyone the way I want to be
treated regardless of skin color or background.

Keith suggested that in addition to cultural differences there also tended to be socio-economic
gaps. He said he still occasionally went to places where he was exposed to people from different
backgrounds—but that his expectations had shifted. For Keith, exposure to people of color was
not enough to bridge perceived barriers of culture and class. For him, and other study
participants who lived downtown, proximity did not necessarily facilitate friendship or other
bonds secure enough to weather difficult conversations.
Is dialogue worth it?: “I love telling white people about their self”
Among participants of color who reported a lack of interaction across boundaries of
difference, there was a range of attitudes towards the emotional energies and risks required to
communicate with white people around issues of race. Anthony was in his early thirties. He
explained that he saw it as part of his upbringing to try and engage white people. This was one of
the reasons that motivated him to participate in Diversity Dinners and to raise issues around
structural racism. He explained that while he often talked with his family members about these
issues, “With all due respect, you know…we aren’t the people that need to hear those
conversations.”
127
He said he enjoyed having white people around his family’s dining table
talking about matters of race they were unlikely to be exposed to otherwise: “It felt good to

127
“Anthony” Author interview. 5/2/16.
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finally have different people in our space to be able to talk to them about those issues that are
really pressing on our day to days, that other people might not ever have to think about.”
Anthony said he also wanted to do this to counter perceptions of how white people saw
him as a Black man:
It’s like, I’m not going to bite. I’m not going to come at you crazy. You might be
uncomfortable. I hear that you know we’re scary. Like Black men are…you know I hear
this. But I feel like I’m a nice person. And if we can talk, and you can see my humanity,
then there’s that common thing that we can share.

He said it was worth it to do this, and not tiresome, because he believed the white people he
engaged with would likely talk to other white people—and centering this around food helped.
However outside of the one night a year of Diversity Dinners, Anthony said he didn’t really have
white people in his circles. He lived in the South Suburbs and commuted to Chicago for work.
But Anthony’s office was on the predominantly African American South Side of Chicago. So
even at work, encounters with white colleagues were rare. When conversations around race came
up, he said he was strategic:
I do the best I can to tread in a respectful way without offending anyone because I know
that’s the way to get someone to shut down and have no effect in the way of the
conversation. But I try. I really try because I feel like it’s important. I feel like it’s really
important.

Despite Anthony’s interest in connecting with white people, his ability to actualize this was
limited by the segregated realities of the region which shaped his social, communication and
geographic ecologies.
“A lot of hurt feelings”: emotional costs of dialogue
Other African American participants in this category had access to white residents in
their professional life and community activities, but had reservations about broaching difficult
conversations across these boundaries. Lorraine shared an experience she had on a trip that
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brought together members of her predominantly African American church with another mostly
white religious congregation. The trip was intended to explore issues of racial justice, and began
on positive and enjoyable terms—including many shared meals. However, at some point the
dynamic soured due to what she said were probably misunderstandings:
One of the things I learned was certain words that are offensive, which I guess we should
know this. One of the Black women called one of the white women, ‘princess’…And it
didn’t go over very well. And there were a lot of tears with that.
128

This group had volunteered to engage: “we should have been the open-minded ones.” And yet,
being together for seven days had pushed them beyond boundaries of politeness—where “after a
while you kind of let your hair down.”
Lorraine explained that the problem, to her, was that the group had been put into a
situation of intensive engagement before they had a chance to build relationships:
We weren’t really able to accomplish what we thought we were going to accomplish,
because we didn’t build those relationships first. …You can’t have an honest
conversation with someone you don’t know. Because we all have our stories. And our
stories are deep and painful, and all of that. And You’re not going to put your story out
there if you feel someone’s going to punch a hole in it.

Lorraine said on the trip this became a problem. There was a lack of mutual respect for the story
of the other—on both sides. People would question each other’s stories, and suggest that they
didn’t really happen. She said that feeling of one’s story being questioned was very painful. The
experience subsequently made Lorraine hesitate when interacting with self-identified progressive
white people—including at Diversity Dinners meals. But she had mixed feelings. She didn’t
want to make people cry, but at the same time she acknowledged that tears might be necessary
“to get past the niceties—to really understand what is hurting me so much, or why does this hurt
you so much.”

128
“Lorraine” Author interview. 7/27/16.
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Lorraine shared the example of how she felt about issues of police brutality and profiling.
She explained that she, a resident of the South Suburbs, had two sons who had been profiled. She
said while overall “they have lived a pretty secure life in our little bubble out here,” the news had
made her feel she cannot separate herself from the broader situation. But despite having strong
feelings about these issues, she did not want to engage with white coworkers to discuss them,
and even had hesitations about her white friends. She related how some of her progressive white
friends had done or said things that would be considered microaggressions—saying a variety of
cringe-worthy remarks, like calling Michelle Obama “articulate.”
While Lorraine acknowledged that tears may be a prerequisite for progress on
understanding across boundaries of difference, she was selective in her willingness to put herself
into such situations. A number of the African American participants in this category
acknowledged a need for self-protection when considering their interactions with white people.
Many referenced experiences they had had with discrimination or perceived microaggressions.
As mentioned earlier, Arlene even joked about being afraid of being “lynched” for saying critical
things about race in the presence of white people. While these sentiments were likely
metaphorical and in jest, they underline how, particularly for older African Americans, honest
conversation about race has put people at risk of violence within living memory. For this reason,
it was not surprising that participants were selective about when and how deeply they chose to
engage. For many, it was important to build a foundation of trust before they tackling meaty
topics like structural racism.
Selective engagement
“Personal opinions can be dangerous”: colorblindness and conflict avoidance
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When it came to political rhetoric about immigration, Brad had no problem talking with
friends from different backgrounds, including from immigrant communities: “My opinions are
pretty much consistent 100% with theirs, so I don’t mind voicing them.”
129
He did not, though,
feel the same about the Black Lives Matter movement:
I was never against Black Lives Matter. When people started saying that, I was like yeah,
Black Lives Matter. …It had no personal bearing on me. …This sounds bad, but I was for
it, but I wasn’t necessarily going to go out to a rally for it. You know. I was definitely for
All Lives Matter.

Brad, who was white, did not feel an intersectional commitment to Black Lives Matter. Rather,
he said he had reservations, particularly after he saw activists disrupting a Bernie Sanders’
speech: “I feel like, they’re being almost reverse racist in the aspect that they’re pointing the
finger at everybody because a certain group of people are being racist.”
Brad preferred rhetoric that emphasized a universal commonality rather than focusing on
differences. As a gay man, he expressed a sense of equivalence between the discrimination he
faced and that faced by African Americans:
I think that all discrimination comes from the same place. …I think that we just need to
learn that discrimination in any form is wrong. And that instead of looking at ourselves as
I’m a Black victim, I’m a gay victim… We’re all victims of discrimination and we should
all join together on one big team against discrimination.

Brad said he avoided sharing his perspectives on Black Lives Matter with African Americans
due to concerns of being “misinterpreted”: “I’m not always the best with words. Sometimes I say
things that I don’t mean.” Brad said he especially avoided these kinds of conversations at work,
where “you have to be careful.” He didn’t want to offend colleagues he had to work with on a
daily basis, but this also meant he did not have the opportunity to engage in constructive
disagreement.

129
“Brad” Author interview. 4/27/16.
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Colorblindness v. intersectionality
Interestingly, a number of participants who mentioned engaging in dialogue with
residents about either race or immigration but not both were either members of the LGBT
community, people of color and/or members of immigrant communities. For many, their
intersectional empathy, and willingness to engage in potentially contentious dialogue, seemed to
be limited by an internalized ideology of colorblindness and meritocracy. Allen, a Filipino
immigrant, reported talking with white officials in his church about immigration. In an
interesting twist, he found himself arguing against “illegal” immigration. He also used colorblind
universalist rhetoric:
The more we talk about diversity, the more the problem it gets. Most likely they talk
about the problems, not the solutions… ‘Oh because the Blacks hate the whites,
Asians’… The more you talk about problem, the more problem you get.

Allen was willing to participate in Diversity Dinners, and to spend time with residents from other
backgrounds, but he did not see a value in talking about race. He argued that too many people
were “complaining and blaming others.”
Allen’s sentiments underlined that post-racial and colorblind rhetoric may be deployed by
people of color themselves. Several Meal Sharing participants from immigrant backgrounds also
expressed a universalist logic. For example, Najila, who self-identified as Arab, said she
supported ‘All Lives Matter’: “I don’t want suddenly to say, okay, all the Black people’s lives
matter more than the white people, more than the Chinese people, more than the Latino people,
more than the Middle Eastern people, no—If you’re going to fight injustice, it should be for
all.”
130
At the same time, she said she didn’t talk to her friends about this issue as she didn’t
consider herself an expert on Black Lives Matter.

130
“Najila” Author interview. 7/11/16.
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Of course it was not only participants from immigrant communities who did not wish to
talk about intersectional issues affecting other “others.” A number of African American study
participants were critical of immigrants and the immigration process. Several expressed a sense
that immigrants were being treated more favorably than African Americans—and many said they
did not discuss such matters with immigrants.
Diversity gaps
A number of participants spoke favorably of the diversity in their social circles and
expressed a philosophical alignment with members of outgroups. However, they acknowledged
that there were gaps, often coinciding with geography. For example, living in South Suburbs that
remained almost all Black or white, Gretchen as a white woman had a number of relationships
with African Americans, but few with people from immigrant communities. Meanwhile, the
Chicago-based Meal Sharing community was ethnically diverse, but African Americans were
underrepresented. As a result, it was perhaps unsurprising that several of the heavy-users of Meal
Sharing said they had more limited access to African Americans.
Dan, who was white, had a history of interconnection with African Americans—
including through an ex-spouse. However, this changed when he moved to Chicago from the
suburbs and became active in Meal Sharing and other groups like Couchsurfing. Dan converted
contacts from Meal Sharing events into friends he socialized with outside of formal meals. He
said his friend circles now were mostly white, Asian, South Asian, and Asian American. Dan
chose to live in a mostly Black neighborhood just South of downtown. But so far, he socialized
more in networks with few African Americans, and so had not talked with African Americans
about issues such as Black Lives Matter:
So I really haven’t had that much of an opportunity to talk to Black people about this
discussion, and it’s not because I’m afraid to. I would love to have a discussion. I would
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love to have their feelings about it because, you know, maybe there’s a viewpoint that I
don’t have yet, and I can’t have that viewpoint unless somebody points it out to me.

Dan said he planned to become more involved with community activities in his own building and
neighborhood in hopes of expanding beyond his Meal Sharing network to include more
connections with African Americans.
Engaging on race and immigration
“I don’t want to leave here”: fragility of situational engagement
Most of those who reported engaging with members of outgroups about both issues of
race and immigration were either young people of color, or white residents who had substantial
personal relationships and interconnections with communities of color. For some white residents,
the South Suburbs offered rare, if possibly dissolving, pockets of integration in an otherwise
racially segregated region. Several villages had a history of encouraging integration, though few
had been immune from white flight. A number of white participants referenced deliberately
choosing to live in the area for the diversity it offered. Several, including Linda, were in, or had
been in, interracial partnerships—or had children from different cultural backgrounds. Linda
moved to the area to minimize the discrimination she feared her biracial children might face.
Now her children had grown and moved further West to areas that are predominantly white. But
Linda was resisting their efforts to encourage her to move closer: “There’s a part of me that’s
afraid that once I move I won’t have the same experiences again in my life. …I’m pretty sure
that once… if I move …I won’t have relationships with Black people.” Linda explained that she
currently interacted with Latino and African American colleagues, but since she was a supervisor
for many of them, she didn’t really socialize outside work. She was afraid that when she retired
they might not be keen to socialize, further limiting her interactions across boundaries of
difference. This experience of retirement leading to less diverse networks was recounted by other
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South Suburban residents. For a number of such participants, Diversity Dinners, or groups like
the League of Women Voters, offered one of the only opportunities they had to engage with
fellow residents from different backgrounds. Several also suggested that one of their few sources
of hope was that their children, particularly those who grew up in more diverse South Suburbs,
would have different patterns.
Engaging on our terms: youth of color navigate networks
For Erica, college was a place of discovery—be it trying a new variety of food from
different cultural backgrounds, or forming friendships with people of different backgrounds.
Growing up in a solidly African American South Suburb, these were new experiences. She
shared how she had formed strong friendships with Latina students from the Chicago region who
were also attending the out of state college. She also had her first visceral disappointments with
progressive white peers around the Black Lives Matter movement. Erica’s liberal arts school had
a reputation for being progressive, and for having frequent protests. She sat through a number of
such protests on environmental and other issues in her classes—trying to give her fellow students
respect and space to share their perspective. But she felt this was not reciprocated for BLM
protests, as students would ask, “why are they doing this?”:
… And it’s like, really. You can yell or hoop and holler for some trees. Which I do think
is important, don’t get me wrong. But like when it comes to people, you’re just like,
‘Why? I don’t understand, this is 2000-bleh bleh bleh,’ …or, ‘We have a Black president
bleh bleh bleh.’ …You see a lot of people who are like really, really down on the
movement. It’s just like, really? You guys are supposed to be the most progressive people
here. So, yeah, that was super depressing to witness.
131

These days, back in the Chicago region, Erica explained that she often discussed issues like race
and immigration with peers from different ethnic or racial backgrounds—but those peers were

131
“Erica” Author interview 5/14/16.
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generally people of color as well. Nevertheless, she said she still tried to engage with white
residents about issues around race, albeit with some caveats:
I’m not going to lie… I usually don’t just open up with that. Usually people I’m talking
to align a little bit with the beliefs that I have. …Usually if it’s a white person that I’m
talking to, it’s going to be somebody that I know at least a little bit well—where I can be
like, no. Going to sit you down. (laughs) Hopefully we can be friends after.

In addition to face-to-face interpersonal networks, several young African Americans also
referenced the dialogue they engaged in around matters of race taking place on social media—
and particularly Twitter:
I feel like Twitter has an ongoing dialogue about politics, racism, immigration reform,
refugees and everything. So even though I shouldn’t, I’m always on Twitter at work, like
all day, like from the time I sit down and get on the computer until the time I leave.
132

Tyler explained social media also offered an outlet allowing residents to talk across boundaries
in a way that might be difficult otherwise given segregation patterns: “Being from the South
Side… I would think it would be very, very difficult to find someone to even speak to if you’re
not doing it on a public forum, the internet.”
Conclusion: Barriers and facilitators to interaction
For participants in this study, the decision of whether to dip one’s toe into contentious
waters around matters of race and immigration was often the product of a web of barriers and
facilitators, rather than a singular factor.
Often a key issue was whether a participant even had access to out-group members with
whom to have conversations. Particularly in areas such as the South Suburbs, the combination of
segregation and car-centric suburban lifestyle patterns meant that opportunities for everyday
convivial interaction were relatively limited. In addition to geography, access was also shaped by

132
“Nina” Author interview 7/28/16.
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participants’ stage of life. While some retirees had diverse networks due to personal relationships
and associational memberships, others spent most of their time at home with grandkids or doing
activities with family members. On the other hand, young people, particularly young people of
color, were more likely to have more diverse networks—often formed through educational and
workplace ties.
For residents in the workforce and in more heterogeneous areas of Chicago, physical
access was a less significant issue. Rather, a key barrier for many were the perceived risks of
engaging with outgroup members on issues that were potentially conflictual. Maintaining
professional relationships was a theme regardless of background or ideology. Beyond this
context, how the concern manifested took different forms. Many people of color, and particularly
African Americans, expressed concerns that engaging in substantive discussions of race with
white people might require a greater investment of emotion and energy than they were prepared
to make. Participants who used colorblind and post-racial rhetoric, however, often framed their
concern as a fear of being “misunderstood” or labeled racist. These were often participants who
identified as white, or as coming from an immigrant background.
In terms of what facilitated participants talking about race and immigration across lines
of difference, associational ties alone were no guarantee. However, participants who had formed
personal relationships with outgroup members—including with people they met at
associations—were more likely to report diving into sensitive subject matter with residents from
different backgrounds. Critically for those interested in encouraging dialogue, a number of
participants suggested associations could play an even greater facilitating role were they to
change their structure to allow participants repeated opportunities to connect. In addition, many
participants in associations used the rhetoric of colorblindness—which often had the effect of
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shutting down discussion about structural racism and experiences of difference. Were such
associations to offer a facilitated space to challenge these frames, they might remove some of the
ideological barriers to discussing matters of difference. Likewise, while I cannot claim that there
is a causal relationship, it is worth noting that participants who reported talking across lines of
difference about contentious issues also reported eating across lines of difference. This may be
worth considering for groups interested in encouraging dialogue who are contemplating
integrating food into their activities. Food could offer an avenue of cultural difference that is
viewed as accessible, and could then be used to pivot to more meaningful explorations of
difference.
Finally, it is worth noting that this study took place in the run up to a moment of
heightened polarization in U.S. politics. Even prior to the most intense period of election fervor,
numerous study participants spoke of how they avoided political conversations with colleagues
and family with differing political views. Returning to Varshney’s (2002) argument that
associational ties that crossed boundaries of difference were critical to maintaining stability in
moments where politicians attempted to “polarize ethnic communities”—it begs the question of
the role these food-related groups played during the volatile election season and its aftermath.
Did members seek support from each other in moments of political stress? Will they going
forward? In the final chapter that follows, I will review what we can learn from these three cases
and their participants’ experiences—including more recent reflections following the election of
Trump, as well as emerging initiatives that are responding to the contemporary political moment
through food.

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CHAPTER 6
Recipes for dialogue?

November 2016 was a difficult month for Gwen. Like many of the Diversity Dinners
participants, she took the results of the U.S. Presidential election to heart. “I was just really
bummed out about it,” she recalled. One day, Gwen was shopping at a grocery store in Tinley
Park. Gwen resented having to travel to and spend money in this majority white tax district—
which she, like many, saw as draining funds from her majority African American suburb. But
there she was. Days after the election. She looked over to see another woman, a white woman
about her age, standing nearby: “We were both in the meat section and she just simply looked at
me and said, ‘Can you believe how this election has gone?’ And so that from there, I think we
talked for 30 minutes.” Gwen said they shared their common worries, and the other woman
fretted about having to join a Thanksgiving table with a family of Trump supporters.
While this encounter was in a spirit of solidarity, Gwen said she had had nearly as many
moments of the opposite.
If you look at me too long, I’m going to speak to you… If you’re buying cereal and I’m
buying cereal. I may say, ‘Oh you know my granddaughter likes this.’ And I found that a
lot of people… The ones that I think have a problem with color, they just, a lot of them
don’t answer, they just walk away. They don’t say anything. You can just kinda tell.
…There’s nothing to lose by saying hello, or giving people a smile.

Gwen said she felt like “there’s more hostility in the air. More permission to say, you know, I
don’t like you… That feeling that I don’t have to be polite anymore.”
Gwen’s experience illustrated what she perceived as a shift in the conviviality of her area,
as noted in the aisles of grocery stores. Other study participants also shared a sense of shifting
racialized and politicized spaces—often including food spaces. Several reflected in addition on
how this made them feel about the food and dialogue initiatives they participated in.
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Looking at the post-election political moment, this chapter explores what can be learned
from this study of Chicago area residents’ culinary imaginaries, mobility, and engagement in
food and dialogue projects. From the aisles of grocery stores to dinner tables, it examines lessons
learned and how participants are attempting to answer questions about where to go from here. I
also examine emerging initiatives attempting to combine food and dialogue to respond to the
Trump era. After an overview of initiatives, I visit two dinners using different tactics and
contemplate what these approaches contribute to the buffet of options for culinary dialogue
across difference. Finally, I reflect on the contributions this dissertation makes for practitioners
and scholars, its limitations, and possible future research.
Culinary imaginaries and mobility in the era of Trump
This dissertation has explored how participants in three food initiatives and three regions
of Chicagoland move through the city vis a vis food. Participants from the South Suburban
Diversity Dinners, the Northern suburb of Evanston’s Table Talks, and Chicago-based
participants in Meal Sharing—as well as residents referred by these participants—all shared their
culinary routines and maps. From this, I grouped study participants according to whether they
were eating food from ‘other’ cultures and who they were eating it with—either Eating food of
‘others’ with ‘others’ (EOWO), Eating food of ‘others’ with in-group members (EOWI), Eating
in-group food with out-group members (EIWO), or Eating in-group food with in-group members
(EIWI) (See Table 2, p.67).
This coding scheme was used to explore themes regarding how residents think about their
relationship with food and their city or region, rather than to draw quantitative conclusions.
However, certain patterns emerged—including the tendency of South Suburban residents to eat
with their in-groups, regardless of what they were eating. Also, Chicago participants were more
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likely to eat foods from other cultures with people from other cultures (EOWO)—but also more
likely to have smaller ranges of mobility (See Table 3, p.68). This of course can in part be
explained by the greater variety and density of restaurants from a range of cultural backgrounds
in the city of Chicago than in the South Suburbs, and the emphasis of the Meal Sharing group
(which many of the Chicago participants were connected to) on culturally varied cuisines. While
overall, the majority of participants were in the low mobility category, and very few reported
eating in stigmatized areas of the region, this was particularly the case for white participants.
The experiences of participants Gwen and Tracy illustrate how culinary imaginaries
shaped the way South Suburban residents navigated and related to their region. While Gwen
(EIWI) tended to be less mobile and eat food from her own cultural background with fellow
African Americans, Tracy (EOWI) was apt to be moderately mobile and do more culinary
exploration—but also with in-group members, which in her case were white Americans. Both
shared experiences of occasionally feeling uncomfortable in spaces they perceived to be racially
coded as ‘other’—be it certain restaurants or stores. But at the same time, both expressed a desire
to interact more across boundaries of difference—and hence were repeat participants in Diversity
Dinners.
I followed up with Gwen and Tracy a year after the 2016 Diversity Dinners to see
whether they had acted on any of their desires to expand the diversity of their social circles, and
to understand whether the political climate following the election had affected them. Regarding
the former, the answer was no, in both cases. While Gwen had bumped into one of the other
attendees accidentally, neither had deliberately made plans with other participants or found other
ways to expand their interactions with fellow residents of different backgrounds.
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Nevertheless, both women were affected by the election and expressed ways that it had
shaped how they interacted with people, especially in public spaces. Tracy’s husband Steve
explained the process they had both participated in when meeting people of unknown political
beliefs: “You do this creeping in conversation to find out what side of the fence you’re on. And
when they discover and I discover we’re on the same side of the fence, then conversation
flows.”
133
Gwen described it similarly:
A lot of times, I would just allude to people, you know, I don’t know what your beliefs
are… Or if there was something on TV related to Hillary or related to somebody else, I
might make a comment, to feel the other person out. Just see where they were and move
on and talk from there.
134

Both women mentioned these interactions taking place in grocery stores—and also in doctors’
offices. Gwen and Tracy were both dealing with health issues in their family which required
frequent visits to health care facilities. Interestingly, both volunteered experiences they had in
doctors’ offices where they had had opportunities to hear perspectives from across boundaries of
ideology.
Tracy said she got to hear from a nurse, a fifty-something white Trump supporter who
opened up to her:
She just kept going, and I kept feeding her lines, and saying well tell me more about that.
Because I thought, I need to know more about what people feel. …And she just unloaded.
Just seriously unloaded on all the ills. And I thought, people feel this way. We live in an
echo chamber mostly of people who feel the way we do. But this woman definitely felt
the other way.

Tracy said she appreciated hearing this woman—and she was able to listen to her in a way she
struggled to do when it came to her own Republican family members. It helped her understand
the “other” side more, but at the same time, she did not challenge the nurse on their differences.

133
“Steve” Author interview. 4/22/17
134
“Gwen” Author interview. 4/19/17
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Gwen, meanwhile, offered a story from a doctor’s waiting room. The television was
tuned to CNN and a news story about immigration came on. A white man turned to a woman
Gwen assumed was his mother and said something about understanding why people supported
Trump, and how things in American “are going to have to change.” Gwen said she found herself
staring at him. She was upset thinking about how the threatened deportations would be
separating children from their parents, and how it might affect Dream Act children:
I just couldn’t help it, I just rolled my eyes at him. And I’m like, my whole facial
expression, I’m sure said, you know, ‘How dare you say that!’ And then it really
surprised me when he said directly, ‘You’re looking at me like you don’t understand
what I’m talking about.’ And I said, ‘I really don’t.’

But the conversation kept going. She told the man that she couldn’t understand where he was
coming from, and she was concerned by what seemed like a lack of compassion in the country:
Then he said, ‘I come from a situation where back in the day, we had respect for each
other. And things have just changed, and people feel like they own this country.’

And then I said, ‘I understand where you’re coming from with that, every minority group
that has come to this country have had difficulty—Italian, Irish—every new group of
people. But I think we should have evolved by now, learned from our experiences.’

He said, ‘I know I probably sound worse than my heart says I am, but I’m just so tired.
I’m unemployed,’ he said. ‘There’s a real struggle in terms of getting jobs out here.’

I said, ‘I understand what you’re talking about. But in my heart, I really do think that
people are pitting us up against each other, and they do it with our worst fears.’

Gwen said this went on for about a half hour. By the end of the conversation, they still disagreed
on some things, but there was no hostility. While Gwen said she now felt “ashamed” about how
the encounter had started with her dismissive eye roll, she appreciated the fact that they had had
a discussion. She expressed disappointment that other would-be encounters had been thwarted—
such as when her greetings of white men at a nearby trailer park she regularly passed walking her
dog were returned with silence.
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Gwen and Tracy both reported the election had made it more complicated, in some ways,
to talk to strangers and people from different ideological or demographic backgrounds. However,
for Tracy, while she expressed a desire to learn about perspectives outside her echo chamber, she
shared more stories of efforts to be around “like-minded” people. While she said she was “not a
marcher,” she had spent the last two weekends going to protest marches in downtown Chicago.
Being in these ideologically shared spaces made her feel emboldened to talk to strangers—
including many from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. She recalled a moment she shared
with a Moroccan-French woman, where she said she gave the woman a fist bump upon learning
that she was Muslim. “I don’t meet many Muslims,” she explained. While I was concerned that
the woman in her story may have found this encounter problematic, Tracy said the women
seemed to react positively to her enthusiasm and they had a conversation about her background
and experiences.
Tracy seemed to treasure these moments. She recounted how on the way from the march
she had sat with a young man of color, and had started up a conversation with him—asking about
the book he was reading, where he had gone to school. They spoke about an upcoming speech
Obama would be giving in the area, and Tracy showed him a photo she had on her phone of a
time she had gotten to meet Obama. She said it was a simple conversation, but it gave her a
“good feeling”:
I was happy to be able to do that. You don’t get many chances to talk to young people,
people who are younger. A person of color, a kid who could have been my student—who
could have been my son. That was the cool thing about it. I felt happy about that.

At some level, Tracy seemed aware that the reason these small moments were noteworthy was
due to the extremely segregated world she inhabited. She and her husband occasionally nodded
to that reality. For example, they shared how much they had recently enjoyed the movie Hidden
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Figures, which highlighted the contribution of African American women to NASA during the
1960s. But they questioned what these movies and moments changed?: “We cheer…and then we
go home to our segregated neighborhoods.”
Chicagoland dialogue initiatives
Every month, Brenda traveled from the South Suburbs of Chicago to Joliet, Illinois.
When Brenda was growing up in Joliet in the 1950’s, racial segregation was the norm. She
recalled only being allowed to use the swimming pool on Mondays, the day before they cleaned
the pool. At the time, the African American community in Joliet was tiny. Brenda was often the
only African American in the classroom, or any room. Still she said she made strong friendships
with some white peers. Those friendships continued decades after she moved to the Chicago
suburbs, and were the reason for her continued monthly lunch visits.
Brenda returned to Joliet the Saturday after the 2016 elections. But this time felt
different:
They were about to seat us at a table where there were a lot of middle aged white folks. A
big long table. And I got scared. And I was shocked. It all came… I’m back in Joliet. And
it surprised me that I was scared again.
135

Brenda said she was not the only person to have a visceral experience in a restaurant following
the election. She mentioned another white friend she had who overheard comments from Trump
supporters in a restaurant and subsequently refused to return. She said the same friend had had an
experience decades before of not being seated because she had brought an African American
young person with her to a restaurant. With the election, Brenda said, “all of that stuff comes

135
“Brenda” Author interview. 4/22/17.
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back, bubbling up.” Brenda noted how it was also “interesting to see how people can finally
identify with us, as certain things happen.”
I spoke with Brenda at the 20-year anniversary celebration of
the Diversity Dinners project in April of 2017. Because it was a
special anniversary event, the group had forgone the usual
organization of multiple dinners in private homes in favor of one
large meal for more than 300 attendees held in a high school
cafeteria. There would be speakers reflecting on the project’s history
and ongoing purpose, and a theatrical performance of a one-man
play about race and identity. But first there was a dinner, and tables were decorated with flowers.
Each place settings had a program, and there were surveys for participants to complete.
These surveys were intended to help shape what several
committee members said they hoped would be the next 20
years of Diversity Dinners. While the group expressed an
appreciation of what they had been able to do over two
decades, they sensed that change was afoot. Every committee
member I spoke with said that the election had underlined why
Diversity Dinners was more important than ever. As Jean said, “The dialogue that is coming
from the White House is so ugly, and scary for people, that people feel like ok, there’s an even
greater need to encourage positive constructive conversations and dialogue.”
136
At the same time,
there were different interpretations about what the core emphasis of the next phase should be.

136
“Jean” Author interview. 4/22/17.
Figure 15. Diversity Dinners 20
th

Anniversary event
Figure 16. Program and survey
at 20
th
Anniversary event

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“This is the time we need the choir,” said Brenda, a founding committee member. Brenda
was referencing the metaphor used both by Diversity Dinners and Chicago Dinners before it.
Responding to accusations of “preaching to the choir,” organizers from both groups had replied
that the “choir needs to rehearse,” and that the “choir was not always singing the same tune.”
After experiences like she had had in Joliet, and stories she heard from friends who felt
“wounded,” Brenda said: “I just need the choir. Because they’re very comforting. You know
what I mean. And that’s where we build our strength.” She added that targeting the choir was
actually more strategically sound anyhow:
I don’t have to come to a dinner in a home and put up with the angriest white man I’ve
ever met. Because you’re not going to shift them. They can’t shift me and I can’t shift
them. But when they’re willing to come even if they don’t always agree with you,
…stories are what change and shift people.

Others looking at the accomplishments of the past and planning for the future expressed different
sentiments about the choir, however:
We all heard the saying the choir always has to practice, so it’s not so bad to speak to the
choir all the time… but I think we all realize that we really have to widen that circle.
137

Gretchen argued that sticking with the same choir was not enough. But her idea of expansion did
not seem to focus on the “angriest white man” either. Instead she mentioned expanding to
include a wider range of backgrounds. For example, she said she hoped to include a resident who
was Muslim on the committee. She also hoped Diversity Dinners would find a way to include
children.
One of the potentially biggest changes being considered was whether to continue to hold
dinners in private homes. “I guess there is some feeling that… the world is changing and some
people are afraid to host it in their home or go to people’s homes,” Gretchen explained

137
“Gretchen” Author interview. 4/22/17.
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regretfully. She and all the committee members and participants I spoke with said they preferred
the meals that took place in homes. As Carol said, “I like the coziness… home dinners give you
an opportunity to see different communities and different homes and how people live… You can
get into better conversations.”
138
But she said there was a sense that a growing fear of gun
violence had made some fearful of opening their homes or going to the homes of strangers. It had
become more difficult to recruit hosts, and she wondered whether they had exhausted that
approach.
Erica agreed that there had been an escalation of fear. Erica was by far the youngest and
newest committee member. She suggested that there might be a bright side to shifting the format
of the dinners. She said they were considering hosting workshops or panels as an alternative that
would allow for “more targeted conversations” rather than a “free for all.”
139
She suggested this
could allow them to work with more trained facilitators who could monitor the conversation and
help them get into “meaty conversations.” Several committee members suggested this might help
them more effectively address community issues like police-community relations or retail red-
lining. Many hoped that adjusting or adding to the format—perhaps periodic events rather than
annual ones—and some specifically geared towards youth, might help with the overall graying of
participants. “I think young people had issues with things like Diversity Dinners,” explained
Jean. “Like ehh what’s the point of that. You know, one night people get together and talk and
then never talk again.”
140
While Jean argued that even the traditional format of the dinners could
offer “a start” for people, she agreed that they might explore things like periodic youth forums to
increase the resonance with younger residents.

138
“Carol” Author interview. 4/27/17.
139
“Erica” Author interview. 4/22/17.
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“Jean” Author interview. 4/22/17
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Changing the menu?
At the time of writing, the committee was still reviewing surveys from their anniversary
dinner and discussing next steps. Based on my previous discussions with participants, committee
members, and observations of meals and meetings, I believe there may be value in reconsidering
the format of Diversity Dinners. As discussed in Chapter 4, the choir, indeed, was not all singing
the same tune with regards to things like the use of colorblind frames, and post-racial rhetoric.
The lack of trained facilitators combined with politeness norms meant that many meals did not
make it beyond universalist rhetoric. If Diversity Dinners, or other such dialogue interventions,
wish to push to the next level of conviviality, they will need to find ways to confront the
dissonance in the choir hymnal—even before expanding to include more participants.
Practically, doing this will be difficult if meeting only once a year—or without skilled
facilitators. At the same time, hosting the meals within homes has been the hallmark of Diversity
Dinners—and is frequently noted as the biggest draw for repeat attendees. Many also noted that
the intimacy of small meals in private homes made them feel more open to sharing stories that
made them vulnerable—and several expressly said they would not have shared such stories in
front of a larger group.
Reflecting upon the other two groups discussed in this dissertation, Table Talks and Meal
Sharing, reinforces some of these points. Evanston’s Table Talks ultimately succumbed to the
precarity of being a local government project supported by a singular staff member. But even if it
had survived, it would have likely faced variations on the challenges Diversity Dinners has
struggled with—whether and how much to focus conversations, whether and how to train
facilitators, how to engage participants after the dinners when there is no capacity to re-invite
them, etc. Meal Sharing had the advantage of organic and more frequent meetings. This allowed
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many of the frequent participants to form relationships that carried outside the Meal Sharing
events. At the same time, the substance of discussions was entirely dependent on the whims of
participants. There was also no guarantee of racial or ethnic diversity—let alone class diversity.
By appealing to participants interested in food, Meal Sharing did attract a choir with some
ideological range. However, it tended to be heavier on participants from the North Side of the
city, with African American and Latinx residents underrepresented—and conversations were
often dominated by participants who preferred to keep politics off the table. These groups had
little prospect of shifting to a level of conviviality replete with political solidarity.
The Trump-era table
As Trump’s victory left many on the left attempting to regroup, the focus for some
activists in various parts of the U.S. shifted from the streets to the home, and in particular, the
dinner table. After the initial dust of the election settled and the Trump administration came into
power, stories emerged in media accounts
141
about an assortment of groups centered on the
dining table–from potluck dinners to connect undocumented refugees to resources, to dinners
cooked by Muslim immigrants and refugee families, to evenings of drinks, cake, and letter-
writing. Most of these newer meal initiatives focused on gathering with like-minded people.
Some evenings focused on clear activities and goals, while others aimed to offer a broader sense
of solidarity. But there were also dinners and other food activities that tried to connect people
from different ideological and demographic backgrounds. Looking at a few of these newer
initiatives offers some insights regarding questions the more established Chicago groups I have

141
An example of coverage of post-election initiatives:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/realestate/home-politics-resistance.html?smid=fb-
share&_r=1
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focused on have grappled with—particularly around how to facilitate dialogue, who to include,
and what the goal of a meal should be.
100 Days 100 Dinners
When I signed up to bring a dessert to a 100 Days 100 Dinners potluck in New York
City, I wasn’t sure what to expect. This national project was started by a coalition of
organizations which, as the name implied, set out to host at least one dinner for each of Trump’s
first 100 days:
We’re out to prove that a group of thoughtful people who differ from one another –
politically, racially, religiously, and generationally – can sit down over a shared meal, go
beneath the headlines, and understand the real stories that have shaped who we are.
142

The project offered two tracks of dinners one could choose to host. For “Be and Belong” healing
dinners, they offered resource guides either geared towards people of color and other identity
groups who had seen an increase of hate crime since the election, for “white allies seeking to
challenge racism and oppression in their own communities and beyond,” or for groups with
participants with a mixture of identities. The dinner I attended was in their “Where Do We Go
From Here?” track, for those who wanted to “connect across lines of difference.”
As guests trickled in and mingled by the drinks table, there was the usual dance of mildly
awkward small talk among people who didn’t know each
other. But I was a little surprised that most other participants
either knew Sam, the host, or knew someone who knew him.
Sam invited us all to have a seat at a long table neatly set for
eight. At each of our place settings there were two squares of
paper. One said “We Agree,” and then: “There’s a lot we

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https://www.100days100dinners.us
Figure 17. Place settings at a 100 Days
100 Dinners meal in New York

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may not agree on. In sitting down, we choose to agree on this.” The paper then listed bullet
points about how participants agreed to be welcoming, present, respectful and kind. The second
piece of paper had “An Invitation to Brave Space.” It was a poem by one of the group’s
coordinators that set out the mission of the evening. Sam invited us to go around the table
reading it aloud, taking turns to read a few lines at a time.
As we then passed dumplings, kale salad, buttermilk biscuits, and cauliflower, Sam
suggested that we adopt a series of “agreements” to ensure that the discussion stayed on track
and adhered to the spirit of the evening. These included using “I-statements,” “passing the mic,”
and adhering to the “Vegas rule” of keeping things at the table and not quoting people without
their permission. While it was not always the case with hosts who volunteer for 100 Days, 100
Dinners, Sam happened to be a trained facilitator in his professional life. As a result, he also
added guidelines drawn from his own experience. These included speaking from the heart,
listening from the heart, speaking “leanly” to respect others’ time, speaking spontaneously, and
avoiding “commenting on what someone’s shared.” As an alternative to the latter he suggested a
range of non-verbal signs of acknowledgement—which included rubbing hands together or
patting one’s chest.
For this dinner, the host guidebook suggested a series of three questions, which our group
covered. These included:
1) Describe a moment, recent or long passed, in which you’ve been made to feel
unwelcome, unsafe, unworthy, and threatened.
2) Describe a moment, recent or long passed, in which you were made to feel the
opposite: in which you felt fully seen and heard and at ease.
3) What can we do to create more of the latter?

Sam explained that the dinner series stressed the value of “storytelling as opposed to opinions or
beliefs that may be divisive”—hence the emphasis on personal experiences. He quoted a mentor
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he had worked with who liked to say that “stories are more important than opinions because an
opinion is a story that has been robbed of its narrative.”
Danielle was already a fan of combining food, community and activism. Since the
election, she had attended and hosted letter-writing parties, and women of color brunch events.
She came to the 100 Days dinner hoping it would help her to interact with people with different
ideological backgrounds:
I’ve been looking for that because My community, my friends, my coworkers are all very
liberal, progressive. And I found that I had difficulty finding people who don’t think the
way that I do in NYC specifically. I don’t want the media to inform me about people’s
political perspectives. Because they’re usually the most extreme.

At the end of the meal, she admitted she was a bit surprised to learn that “everybody at the table
was pretty progressive.” Nevertheless she felt the evening had value:
I think going into it with that open mindset. With that curiosity. Without knowing where
anybody was on the political spectrum –prepared me more for meeting people like that,
even if they didn’t turn out to be at this dinner, to be more right-leaning or voting for a
different candidate.

Danielle said the dinners offered a kind of training: “I’m prepared next time to be open minded
and curious and excited. And I know how to have these conversations now, whereas before I
would not have known.”
Sam acknowledged that it can be difficult to “find a balanced meal” in predominantly
blue New York City. That evening’s group had some racial diversity, though it was mostly
young, white participants—who did not vote for Trump. Sam said in a previous dinner he
attended, there were participants from different sides of the political spectrum—but he couldn’t
even tell until afterwards because the conversations so scrupulously focused on stories over
political debate.
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Sam admitted there was a tradeoff in this emphasis on personal stories at the expense of
discussion of structural and political issues. But he suggested that when the dinners really had
participants from different ideological backgrounds, it would be difficult to shift the discussion
into advocacy for specific issues without being insensitive to people who were a minority in the
group. He said he hoped those sorts of conversation could be next steps to grow out of the Where
Do We Go From Here? dinners, but they were unlikely to be rolled together into one meal.
After Trump’s first 100 days passed, the coalition behind 100 Days, 100 Dinners decided
that there was still demand for and value in the meals. They reframed these meals as what they
now call “The People’s Supper,” which they plan to continue at least over the next year. The
website suggested the meals would continue to try and address the problem of echo chambers
and to create spaces “to see each other as real people”:
Suppers are a place where we can come together over one of humanity’s most ancient
and simple rituals. A place where we can share meaningful stories, good food, and a
sense of community. A place where we can build understanding and trust.

Attempting to deal with something as broad as polarization, it is not surprising that the group
appealed to universalist rhetoric, not so unlike groups like Diversity Dinners. At the same time
the People’s Supper’s emphasis on structured facilitation was different—and did seem to push
participants to go beyond small talk into meaningful self-reflection.
I myself was admittedly skeptical when I initially heard the rules of discussion, or
“agreements.” I felt the conversation would be stilted or unnatural by restricting side-
conversations and follow-up questions and comments—and the conversation was not exactly
natural. But somehow the more deliberate focused style of the discussion, and the earnestness of
fellow participants, made the discussion more meaningful than many more ‘natural’
conversations tend to be. It would be interesting to combine facilitation like this with the careful
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selection processes Diversity Dinners did with its in-home meals. A curated guest list might
allow the action to go beyond storytelling among like-minds. Nevertheless, it is not clear that
such discussions in isolation would yield constructive agonism or step in the direction of political
solidarity in the way that would be needed to shift to a higher level of conviviality. Rather it
seemed to be a first step in building trust and community that would be ephemeral if not paired
with follow-up.
From Blackness in America to 1882
In a sleek loft space in the trendy Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, a sold-out
crowd jostled to fill their glasses with the bourbon and gin they had been requested to bring in
the invitation. The guests, who ranged from millennials to middle age, appeared diverse in terms
of race and ethnicity. I encountered white Americans, African Americans, Asian Americnas,
South Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, and immigrants from Nigeria, India, Belgium, and
the UK. While some of the guests I met had come at the bequest of a friend or partner, most
came after hearing about the reputation of the host, Tunde Wey.
As a chef, writer, and provocateur, Tunde had been touring the U.S. combining Nigerian
family recipes with discussion about racism, and more recently questioning assumptions
underlying the immigration system. Tunde’s foray into cooking grew out of his frustration with
the pretense of the “foodie” world that he first encountered in Detroit. He began touring the U.S.
cooking pop-up dinners in 2014, until he was detained by immigration officials in Texas for
lapsed visa status. Tunde, who had lived in the U.S. since high school, spent 20 days in
immigration detention. After that, he was back to cooking in New Orleans, eventually launching
a new road tour that was more expressly political.
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I first spoke to Tunde when he was in the middle of his Blackness in America tour. He
had by then garnered national press after weighing in on contemporary food controversies about
racism and cultural appropriation. At his Blackness in America dinners he invited local speakers
and sought to create a Black-centered space. White diners were welcome to come and be privy to
this discussion, and they did, but the purpose was to prioritize the perspectives of Black people in
the U.S.
At these dinners, Tunde cooked Nigerian food, but he didn’t talk about the food unless
asked –even though he knew many participants came at least in part because they were curious
about Nigerian food (and the dinners were not inexpensive—the one I attended set me back $65
plus a bottle of bourbon). For Tunde, food functioned as a means to an end:
People like to eat and food is trending. …Contemporary food culture is a mark of status.
It marks people as in the know and all that shit. So food works as a device in that way.
Luring folks to… merge these very different things. Merge a consumerist and commodity
driven lifestyle and adding to it with a more conscious one in terms of the
conversation.
143

Tunde explained that he wanted to use his dinners to challenge assumptions that, “If you are in a
space where food is being served, you don’t talk about anything that important.” He also
acknowledged that having these discussions over a meal “gives
people shit to do with their hands and their mouth when things
get uncomfortable”—a sentiment previously expressed more
delicately by many Diversity Dinners participants.
In general, however, Tunde was not concerned with the
comfort of guests. He was deliberately informal and used
profanity in his speech and music. He dismissed the idea of

143
Tunde Wey. Author interview. 11/4/16.
Figure 18. Place setting at Tunde
Wey’s 1882 dinner. Menu an
enlarged version of Nigerian passport
cover.

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polite dinner etiquette: “Those ideas of etiquette and formality are ideas that support systems of
oppression. Because if you’re being proper you can’t be honest about things that are
problematic.”
Despite anticipating Tunde’s provocative style, it
was still jarring to flip over the laminated menu
displaying an enlarged image of a Nigerian passport cover
(See Figure 18) at Tunde’s new 1882 dinner series. On
the back side, over an image of a younger Tunde’s
passport photo page, was a list of xenophobic discussion
questions, such as “Which non-industrialized country
would you refuse entry to the U.S.?” (See Figure 19). The
dinner series, which took its title from the year the
Chinese Exclusion Act took effect in the U.S., promised
to discuss the mythology of American meritocracy. We
had been emailed homework the week before the dinner—a 1995 article aimed at development
organizations that challenged traditional arguments against open borders. Most of the six people
at our table (which was one out of five tables) had done the reading, and now were dutifully
trying to follow Tunde’s instructions for us to talk amongst ourselves in these impromptu groups
of strangers before discussing together as a larger group.
This willingness to embrace the uncomfortable and the conflictual put Tunde in line with
Amin’s (2002) idea of agonism. He was ok with unresolved conflict as a way to push
understanding forward. During our group discussion about immigration, where he pushed
participants to explore the relationship between immigration and labor, Tunde at times
Figure 19. Discussion questions
and menu for Tunde Wey’s 1882
dinner in Brooklyn.

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challenged guests on problematics statements. He also opened the floor for guests to engage with
each other. For example, when a white women talked about how she deliberately sought out
opportunities to be surrounded by difference socially, a Caribbean American woman forcefully
responded that she did not have the luxury of choosing that dynamic, and that the cultural labor
of being constantly expected to explain difference was exhausting.
These sorts of moments fit Tunde’s goal of getting participants to face hard truths, rather
than prematurely looking for a “solution”:
The idea of a solution, actually empowers and emboldens people with privilege and
power not to sit in the discomfort. Because they can quickly, ok what is a solution, let’s
work on it. And they skip the transformative process of discomfort, of learning…and so
nobody is off the hook. Yeah we take action every day—all the time. But those actions
shouldn’t be conflated with solutions. They’re necessary. They’re parallel. But they’re
not comprehensive or complete.

Tunde explained that his idea of “parallel action” demanded that both stewing in discomfort and
concrete action needed to happen at the same time. He said he hoped his dinners could be a place
for both discomfort and action—and, during his Blackness in America dinners, he said he was
trying to connect participants with community partners with whom they could engage in more
concrete steps. He later said he had some reservations about what volunteers could contribute in
terms of actions in the more technical immigration space, but suggested action could also mean
personal work to address the fact that our “professed positions differ with the realities we
live.”
144

When I first spoke with Tunde, days before Trump’s election, Tunde was clear that,
regarding social change, his focus was not on overtly racist Trump supporters. Like Diversity
Dinner’s Brenda, he was not interested in trying to persuade the “angriest white man.” He

144
Tunde Wey. Email exchange with author. 5/4/17.
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viewed blatantly hateful racists as a distraction. Rather, he focused on the problem of progressive
white people:
It’s cool to say I’m a white male and I understand my privilege. Yeah, but like you suffer
no consequences by saying that. You have to do something. Your privilege is not just
problematic, it’s destructive…There are actually material consequences to white privilege
and white supremacy.

Tunde argued that while he did not want progressive white people to think there was a quick
solution to white supremacy, he did want them to try and address the social inequalities that the
system they benefited from had created. This included pushing for policy action as well as
working to “change attitudes culturally and socially and politically.” He argued that it was:
A false notion that we have a saved and enlightened group of people who are already on
the side of justice and light. That’s not true. And we have an enemy in these other people
who are blatantly racist, that’s not true either. …The dichotomy doesn’t exist, everyone is
indicted.

Tunde’s dinners seemed to be more about encouraging self-questioning than about
community building. While it’s not possible to make claims about how the evenings affected
participants without additional research, Tunde’s disruptive methods and deliberate embrace of
discomfort did at least expose participants to discussions that challenged norms of
colorblindness. In addition, given his dinners almost always sell out and always include a
considerable number of white participants, his work in some ways offers a proof of concept that
there are self-defined progressive white people who are willing to be pushed into potentially
agonistic spaces—even if they may have come for the food, or already believed they were saved.
If Tunde were to deepen his emphasis on connecting participants with opportunities for sustained
follow up action or at least connection to local communication networks, his work could
potentially inch closer to the parallel actions he seeks.

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Contributions of this dissertation
Supper and dialogue- lessons learned for practitioners
Bearing in mind the varied strategies these newer projects have employed regarding
facilitation, attitudes towards politeness norms, and target participants, there are a number of
lessons learned regarding the three Chicagoland food initiatives, and larger questions of how
such projects may be able to push toward a higher level of conviviality.
As discussed, Diversity Dinners, Table Talks and Meal Sharing varied in what they could
achieve based on their mission, strategies employed by their organizers, and historical and
geographic realities. Diversity Dinners has had tremendous longevity largely because its
planning committee has been closely tied to meso-level actors such as local government offices
and groups such as the League of Women Voters. When one committee member has had to step
away, they were often able to recruit a co-worker from one of these institutions to fill-in or join
in addition. The group also appealed to what seems to be a genuine sentiment among both
institutions and individual participants that a multiethnic and integrated region was in the best
interest of their respective communities. However, Diversity Dinners had considerable variation
regarding the extent issues of racial justice and difference were discussed from house to house
and meal to meal. This should not be surprising given that hosts received only minimal training
in facilitation, and not everyone on the committee, let alone every host, shared an understanding
of the goals of discussions or why colorblind ideology was problematic. The fact that meals only
took place once a year with different people each year meant that trust building had to begin
from scratch every year and participants were not linked into communication networks to
maintain or build upon their connections in the interim.
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Table Talks, on the other hand, did not have the time to get stuck in with its local
government sponsor due to staff changes and internal political wrangling. The group did attempt
to encourage more focused discussions by circulating articles with participants in advance, but
again, hosts were not trained facilitators. In both pilot cases, the hosts allowed conversations to
follow participants’ interests in ways which may have been valuable, but did not necessarily
explore the intended topics. Table Talks did make some preliminary efforts to facilitate the
ongoing communication of participants via a closed Facebook group and email listserv, however
the project fizzled out before any substantive follow up was possible.
Finally, Meal sharing was never intended to specifically focus on discussions of racial
justice. It was not facilitated, there were no set topics of conversation, and the backgrounds of
participants depended on who self-selected to sign up. Meal Sharing did organically foster a
sustainable communication network by offering regular opportunities to meet in a way that led
some participants to form a sense of community and develop friendships outside the official
parameters. Nevertheless, the group tended to nurture cosmopolitan sensibilities that privileged
exploration of cuisine from multiple cultures over critical consideration of the political and
power dynamics that accompanied this consumption. The underrepresentation of African
Americans and Latina/os and South and West Side neighborhoods also meant that some cultures
and cuisines were showcased more than others.
It would be artificial to suggest fixed guidelines as best practices across all communities.
Indeed, among these Chicagoland projects and the newer initiatives, aspects of each project that
worked best tended to be ones that were responsive to the interests of local participants or were
at least mindful of meeting participants where they were. Nevertheless, for organizers of these or
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other possible initiatives, it may be worth considering some overarching themes and related
strategies.
Know your goal and know your participants. For groups that seek to foster dialogue
around racial justice or other related issues, it is critical to have a shared understanding of the
meal’s objectives—be it to create spaces of support, spaces for the choir to build its base and
decide what songs to sing, or spaces of bridging across demographic or ideological difference.
Based upon this, organizers can seek appropriate participants and more effectively guide those
who show up—being mindful that even within categories, where people are at in their reflexivity
and understanding of issues can vary considerably. Groups may also need to consider having
multiple stages and objectives that adapt over time or location. For example, if the goal is
bridging between people of different backgrounds and moving up the ladder of conviviality,
there may first need to be a humanizing/trust building phase in which it is less crucial to
challenge universalist rhetoric. There may also need to be a stewing in discomfort phase in which
colorblind frames and structures of white supremacy need to be confronted. Taking these steps
first may create a base from which to tackle action and move towards political solidarity.
Adapt your structure and facilitation style based on your goals. There is no one best style
of facilitation. And, of course, there are multiple schools and methods of facilitation, a
comprehensive discussion of which is beyond the scope of this dissertation. However, in general,
as the experiences of most of the groups I observed demonstrated, facilitation is often not given
the attention it is due. Facilitation should fit the meal’s objective. For example, a facilitator could
guide participants in sharing personal stories when attempting to establish a shared sense of
connection and trust across difference. But a different approach may be required to encourage
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self-questioning, or the “transformative process of discomfort” as Tunde Wey puts it. A skilled
facilitator could guide participants to, if not through, this productive discomfort.
Similarly, the way projects are structured should be tailored to the goals of the project.
Rarely can meaningful goals be achieved in one evening’s meal. Groups seeking to put social
change on the menu would do well to consider repeat meetings, the format of which could be
adjusted based on the goals and the participant population. For example, in Baltimore, the group
Thread organized a sequence of three dinners following unrest following the death of Freddie
Gray. The first invited participants to discuss issues facing Baltimore and had 10 residents in 100
homes. The second focused on personal experiences and brought the same 10 people back for a
discussion, but then connected them with a reception and meal for 100 others. The last dinner
invited groups to make plans for social action with their same groups of 10, but was held in a
large space for 1000 people. In between the dinners, participants were encouraged to meet each
other for coffee.
145
Likewise, it would be worth examining the experiences of groups such as
Philadelphia’s Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, who have been connecting Jewish and Muslim
women to cook food for homeless people, to understand what they have learned from having
women from different backgrounds collaborate on a shared goal over time.
146

Groups seeking to build an expanded base or reach younger participants may examine
how they approach the food itself—considering, for example, whether there might be
opportunities to tap into “foodie” interest in cuisines from various cultures, or even cooking
skills. Groups may also want to consider activities such as potlucks, for example, inviting
participants to bring dishes that have meaning to them as an expression of their culture—as a

145
Sarah Hemminger, Thread co-founder. Author interview. 5/12/17.
146
http://www.philly.com/philly/food/Jewish-muslim-kosher-halal-sisterhood-salaam-
shalom.html
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possible activity to be integrated into a larger program. Finally, groups seeking to engage a broad
audience might question what are the next steps for participants who seek to continue exploring
connections and issues raised. In addition to having multiple meals, there may be other tracks of
activity—both face to face or possibly online (for example a Facebook group) depending on the
group’s interest and objectives.
Overall, groups seeking not only the recognition of difference but also solidarity and
mutual care, would do well to have clear expectations before coming to a table. Skilled
facilitators with a clear understanding of the meal’s goal could ensure that discussion is focused
and appropriately challenging, without being stilted or overly formal. Curated and reasonably
small groups, particularly within private homes, can create a sense of intimacy that can be
particularly valuable when inviting reflection and sharing of often difficult subject matter. The
food itself and how it is shared (e.g. potluck v. home-cooked v. catered) can be used as a
program element and conversation starter. Post-meal follow up, be it in the form of additional
meals, or other activities, could build upon the trust established from the first meal and allow the
group to further develop by working towards a shared goal or planning a shared action. In
addition to face to face group activities, participants may be offered opportunities to
communicate with each other through various channels—be it online groups, exchanges of
contacts to encourage informal one-on-one or small group follow-up meetings, etc. Ideally, any
of these food-based activities would complement and connected with existing community
organizations and other meso-level actors working towards similar goals—increasing the
likelihood of sustained collaboration and action.

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Culinary imaginaries and Chicagoland
This dissertation attempted to contribute to an interdisciplinary body of studies
examining the relationship between food, geography, belonging, and race—by offering a case
study of how the culinary imaginaries of residents did or did not shape their relationship with
Chicagoland and their negotiation of difference within it. It showed that some residents did
subscribe to imaginaries that were bridging—they ate food from various cultures with people
from various cultures. However, the possibilities of these imaginaries leading to new encounters
with difference, or discussion of contentious issues, was limited by other structural constraints—
such as their geography, communication ecologies, and local racial power dynamics. Participants
in food initiatives living in the city of Chicago may have been more likely to share a meal with
someone from a different background—but some difference was more accessible, sought after,
or more readily included, than others, as noted by the lack of participation of African Americans
in such circles. Likewise, cosmopolitan foodies from downtown and the North side were unlikely
to follow their exploration of neighborhood cuisines to areas coded as Black—often reporting the
influence of stigmatizing media—findings that echo the fear and comfort mapping of Matei and
Ball-Rokeach (2005).
In the South Suburbs, geography, segregation, and the lack of local communication or
culinary assets like cafes, restaurants, or stores proved a difficult match for the bridging
intentions of many participants in Diversity Dinners. Apart from a minority who had personal
relationships across lines of race and ethnicity, those who sought out food from other cultures
generally did so with members of their own in-group. The considerable interest in and loyalty to
the Diversity Dinners project suggests that there may be potential for residents to find pathways
to more potentially bridging encounters with difference if given more structured opportunities.
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Conviviality at the dinner table?
This dissertation also sought to contribute to discourse around conviviality and convivial
separation (Georgiou, 2016), exploring whether food initiatives involving participants from
different backgrounds might contribute to the convivial fabric of communities. As discussed in
Chapter 4, the three Chicagoland food initiatives examined in this dissertation remained fixed at
what Georgiou identified as a middle level of conviviality—“a politics of civility through
negotiation of We-ness and Otherness.” Moving to a higher level of conviviality, Georgiou
argued, requires the critical recognition of inequality, and access to multiple communication
networks through communication infrastructure.
Based on observations and interviews, I argue that to move in the direction of greater
inclusivity, mutual care, and solidarity, groups will need to 1) adjust their structures to create
more frequent and regular access to communication networks, and 2) reconsider how their
facilitation styles may be adjusted to create spaces to challenge frames of colorblindness, and
create room for the “transformative process of discomfort.”
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Examining these cases also illustrates how concepts of everyday conviviality and
convivial separation operate in the context of varied geographic and communication contexts.
For example, for planning committee members of the Diversity Dinner in the South Suburbs, the
group offered access to a communication network and opportunities to gather in a shared
physical space that they may have not had otherwise. On the other hand, the communication
network afforded by the Meal Sharing group in Chicago may not have made as noticeable a
difference for some participants given their relative proximity to difference as a day to day norm.
Neither group, however, approached critical recognition of inequality in a systematic way—

147
Tunde Wey. Author Interview. 10/4/16.
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though there were momentary flashes where some participants engaged with these issues in both
groups.
Ultimately, these cases underline that the hopefulness of breaking bread is not enough on
its own to facilitate stronger intergroup ties. For the pairing of dialogue and meals to be a
meaningful and sustainable intervention, the process must not only allow for the critical
recognition of difference, but also connect with residents’ storytelling networks. Meal and
dialogue initiatives that link with interpersonal networks, organizations, or media that residents
are already connected with, will be more likely to enable them to build upon the shoots of
connection formed over plates of chicken and rice. As Georgiou (2016) argues, her concept of
convivial separation does not require residents to be in constant contact, but rather to have access
to communication infrastructures that will allow them to connect at strategic moments.
Food talk as method
Participants’ reflections on how and where they traveled in the region and how this
changed over time further demonstrated my previous findings (Wenzel, 2016) that the method of
food talk can be used as a diagnostic tool to examine intergroup relations and attitudes towards
community change and belonging. Residents spoke easily about food in a way that led them into
reflection on larger issues of the racial coding of spaces, segregation, and white flight. Whether it
was a memory of a no-longer-accessible Italian beef sandwich, a sense of disdain for having to
travel to a majority white area to eat at a chain restaurant that had moved, or a feeling of
empowerment about “exploring” the cuisines of various neighborhoods—feelings about food
tapped into feelings about residents’ relationships to their community and the “others” within it.
This dissertation offers an illustration for scholars of how discussion of food practices and
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histories can be used in case studies exploring the intersection of race, community change, and
food.
Limitations and future directions
As with any qualitative case study, there are limits to what can be generalized from this
dissertation. Drawing from participants connected to three initiatives where residents ate in the
homes of stranger, as well as non-participants referred by them, the study offers a considerable
depth and texture regarding these initiatives and participants’ relationships to their communities
through the lens of food. The study, however, makes no claim to offer a general representation of
the sprawling Chicagoland metro area.
The study also does not attempt to make general comparisons between the pockets of
Chicagoland most participants were associated with—the vast South Suburbs, Evanston in the
North, and Chicago’s Northside, Downtown, and near West Side. In particular, I was limited in
the number of participants I was able to access from Evanston’s Table Talk group, as the group
was shuttered after only two meals, and the project’s administrator became inaccessible. Even
beyond this, given these were convenience samples that attempted to broadly reflect the
demographics of the three initiatives, the clusters of participants had considerable variation in
gender, race/ethnicity, and age that complicates comparison, and limits any possibility of
generalized comparison of geographies outside of these particular groups.
There are also a number of elements of this study which may be explored further through
future analysis. For example, I tracked what media (national and local) participants mentioned
using. While the variance between media practices did not suggest an obvious correlation with
participants’ culinary imaginaries or mobility, it may be interesting to conduct content analysis
of local media coverage of the Chicago region to offer further context. Likewise, while I used
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participants’ mapping exercises to code their mobility, further spatial analysis of these maps may
offer additional insights. Finally, I also gathered additional reflections from participants on how
they conceptualized authenticity vis a vis food, as well as their thoughts on cultural
appropriation, and local food controversies surrounding Chicago’s Rick Bayless. Here again,
while variance in participants’ responses did not seem to correlate with variation on their
intergroup communication or mobility, there may be value in revisiting this data.
Following on from this particular study, I believe there are numerous possible research
strands which could be pursued. As discussed, I would like to explore what may happen if an
initiative such as Diversity Dinners were to take measures aimed at furthering their path towards
greater conviviality. Depending on the nature of their activities (e.g. if they have more regular
contact over food or online, or try different facilitation styles), this may also link with a research
strand Yomna Elsayed and I previously piloted looking at how politically polarized groups
maintain cohesion through a combination of face to face meals and online dialogue (Elsayed and
Wenzel, 2016). The Philadelphia case connecting Muslim and Jewish women to cook food for a
homeless shelter also offers a more classical test of intergroup contact theory (Allport, 1954) by
enlisting participants in work on a shared goal in a non-competitive environment.
148
There are
also, for good or ill, numerous potential comparative possibilities to examine how such efforts
work in different political and cultural contexts (for example there are several initiatives in
France using meals to broach dialogue on issues of migration).
149

148
http://www.philly.com/philly/food/Jewish-muslim-kosher-halal-sisterhood-salaam-
shalom.html
149
An article on one such initiative: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/dining/refugees-
chefs-paris.html?_r=0
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This exploration of the potential of dialogue initiatives has value beyond the dining table.
The contemporary moment of polarized politics has left many, particularly on the left, grasping
for ways to understand “the other.” One of the Diversity Dinners organizers, a young African
American woman, explained that while she was not as shocked by the election results as many of
her white colleagues, she appreciated that the moment seemed to wake them up to the need to
talk: “This moment where this vision of utopia… racial harmony, non-discriminatory living…
got shattered, hearts got shattered… people were like how could our nation do this.” She said at
that moment people seemed much more open to having these conversations—they were no
longer “shrouded”—but she wasn’t sure how long it would be sustained.
150
Dialogue initiatives,
with or without food, have been one way groups around the U.S. have been attempting to address
the lack of a shared understanding of issues such as racial justice—and other often related
concerns. As with the food initiatives, such dialogue projects would likely benefit from exploring
questions around how they can connect to residents’ existing storytelling networks to increase
the odds of sustainability.
I hope to build on this dissertation in a new case study I am examining to explore what
political polarization looks like in the communication ecologies of residents in a different,
politically redder geographic area. I will be using focus groups, media diaries, and interviews
with residents of a purple college town and a surrounding red rural area. Through these I hope to
map out the communication ecologies of residents, and whether there are any communication
resources shared across lines of demography and ideology. I am also interviewing a range of
local media to discuss the health of the local storytelling network and the needs and challenges
they face as local journalists. From this preliminary research a second stage is expected to

150
“Erica” Author interview 4/22/17.
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involve a regional media collaboration that includes community engagement activities—and
possibly dialogue initiatives. While this will be determined and shaped largely by local
stakeholders and partners, I will be eager to consider lessons learned and unanswered questions
from this dissertation in observing any future dialogue and engagement initiatives that seek to
further convivial bridging across lines of difference.
Hope or humble pie

As the seed of this dissertation sprouted from a hopeful question while visiting my
parents’ home and wondering if food could act as a connecting force to address cultural and
structural rifts in this country, it seemed fitting that I found myself driving back there as I was
beginning to conclude my research. It was Thanksgiving, 2016, and I was feeling much less
hopeful. There almost wasn’t going to be a meal to mark this (inherently problematic) holiday in
my family. Days before the election, after a left-leaning sister and I separately had arguments on
the phone with my mother (wherein we both ended up hanging up on my mother), I received a
text message to say Thanksgiving dinner had been canceled. The powers of parental guilt and my
disappointment with my own ability to practice dialogue led to tearful negotiation, and as of
election day, the dinner was back on. But as the election results came in, I began to question,
how am I going to sit at a table where the majority of my family members present support
Trump?
The organization Showing Up for Racial Justice, or SURJ, clearly anticipated scenarios
like this:
If we’re going to make significant change in our country, we have to break some of the
customs we have as white people. One of those is not to talk about race at the dinner
table. We want to encourage everyone to go home for the holidays and have courageous
and loving conversations with our families about race, Trump and what’s at stake.

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I had been following SURJ online and attended a couple of their activities in Chicago. The group
focused on engaging white people in anti-racism work, and had grown largely in response to the
Movement for Black Lives. Each chapter had an accountability relationship with a people of
color-led organization—and worked to support these groups and their campaign strategies, which
in Chicago often centered on community-police relations.
But for Turkey day, SURJ wanted its members to work on their own people: “Many
families prefer to keep the conversation away from the holiday table. That said, we know these
spaces can also be the spots where we have the most influence.” SURJ offered a Thanksgiving
guide with suggested conversation starters:
When someone asks about how you are doing, say, ‘I am feeling really [sad/scared/upset]
after this election.’
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The guide offered pointers about how to respond to different streams of argument, such as “I’m
not racist for supporting Trump,” or, “The media is lying.” Suggestions included asking
questions with the aim of increasing understand as well as encouraging reflection among the
targeted relative. SURJ even offered a hotline via text message where you could text SOS and
get pointers on various subject areas—or even call a SURJ representative to get support on the
day itself.
I did try the SOS text hotline, but ultimately I myself failed to use the dinner to engage
my family in a conversation about race. In fact, I abided by the ‘no politics’ rule we had agreed
to when negotiating the revival of the meal. My sense of filial piety and desire to preserve a
fragile peace won out over my interest in experimenting with dialogue. I felt in a very personal
way the tension of what may have been a false choice—between wanting to maintain a

151
http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/thanksgiving
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connection with people with very different views, versus risking a complete breakdown of
communication. Perhaps there could have been a third path where we could have used the meal
to explore our divisions without escalating conflict beyond breaking, but I did not feel confident
enough in the conversation starters or my own ability to be a cool facilitator among blood
relatives to find out. Not unlike the experiences of Tracy, who was able to talk to pro-Trump
strangers but not her own relatives, I had made a privileged choice not to put race on the table.
The efficacy of initiatives like SURJ’s Thanksgiving discussion guide required more courageous
and confident facilitators than myself—or at least than I was at that moment.
Over the course of exploring this dissertation, I have been forced to grapple with the
messiness that occurs when trying to implement concepts that have a logic on paper, but can be
much more slippery in the application. This has included trying to come to terms with my own
need to sit in discomfort and not attempt to impose superficial solutions onto wildly complex
structural problems. Clearly, I have more work to do, on myself, but also on my questioning of
what do concepts such as bridging or convivial separation mean in the implementation—and
who are they benefitting. How can I be sure they aren’t efforts that do more to comfort “nice
white people” who are willing to “recognize their privilege” but do little change material
realities? For me, for the moment, my answer for myself is that I will need to keep trying what
Tunde Wey called “parallel action,” even if it means putting a slice of humble pie on my plate
alongside a sliver of hope. It may not be the tastiest meal, but it seems worth it to continue
showing up at the table.

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APPENDIX A
Food and media log

[The following was shared with the 57 study participants prior to being interviewed]
Thank you for participating! As explained in the information sheet, please share where you eat, who you eat with,
and where you get media for one week. If you have a particularly memorable or enjoyable meal, please take a photo
and make a note for reference.
Breakfast Lunch Dinner Other/snack
Example Where/What kind of
place?
(home, restaurant
name/type, work,
car, etc.)
Home Work/shared
table area
Tank Noodle/
Vietnamese sit-
down restaurant

Starbucks/cafe
What? (If take-out
please note where it
is from)
Cereal Takeout from
Chipotle
Pho noodle
soup
Coffee and
cookie
With who?

Self

co-workers spouse friend
Photo?

yes
Food media used
today? (to find what
to cook or where to
eat)
e.g. Instagram; Yelp; Check, Please! TV show; WBEZ story; Washington
Post article; Diners Drive ins and Dives TV show, Martha Stewart food
blog, etc.
Day 1:
[insert date]
Where/What
kind of place?

What?

With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

Day 2:

Where/What
kind of place?

What?

With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

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Breakfast Lunch Dinner Other/snack
Day 3:

Where/What
kind of place?

What?

With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

Day 4:

Where/What
kind of place?

What?

With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

Day 5:

Where/What
kind of place?

What?
With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

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185
Day 6:

Where/What
kind of place?

What?
With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

Day 7:

Where/What
kind of place?

What?
With who?

Photo?

Food media
used today?

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Asset Metadata

Creator Wenzel, Andrea (author)

Core Title Supper and segregation: navigating difference through food in Chicagoland

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Publication Date 07/14/2019

Defense Date 06/12/2017

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag communication,dialogue,food,OAI-PMH Harvest,race

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Ball-Rokeach, Sandra (committee chair), Gross, Larry (committee member), Kun, Josh (committee member)

Creator Email adwenzel@usc.edu,andreadwenzel@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-398901

Unique identifier UC11265720

Identifier etd-WenzelAndr-5513.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-398901 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-WenzelAndr-5513.pdf

Dmrecord 398901

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Wenzel, Andrea

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA