Staff Contributor – A Collaborative Culture | Austin Community College District

by Jessica Oest, Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, Riverside Campus

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.
—Anthony Bourdain, n.d.

Food is often viewed as one of the most culture-defining aspects of people’s lives. As Anthony Bourdain suggested in the above quote, food is inseparable from everything that defines us as people. Everybody has stories about how their mother, grandmother, father, or other family members make the “best” dish. Food is a significant component of our cultural identity from Latin America to Europe, Asia, and America. “Food, like language, exists as a vehicle for expressing culture. One grows up eating the food of their culture and it becomes a part of who they are. It operates as an expression of cultural identity” (Lawrence & Tushman, 2020).

We all have our own life histories and cultures and come from different walks of life. Where we come from socially, culturally, economically, and more all influence our experiences and interactions. These factors can determine how we approach situations where we interact with others. Breaking bread, and listening to stories about everyone’s experiences can create a sense of community because none of those differences break the link we all share. We are all human. Society and the world have become increasingly divisive in recent years. Still, there are many ways we can bridge those divides and make room for conversations and experiences that bring about understanding and camaraderie. We can break barriers and share in each other’s differences and similarities in many ways.

One such way is by taking the time to break bread with one another. In doing so, we can provide an opportunity to learn from each other and about the cultures and family traditions that are different from our own. Breaking bread together allows us to transcend borders, create conversation, and further emphasizes the idea of transnationalism, which brings us closer together. Transnationalism is a way for people from different countries, cultures, and beliefs to find ways to connect.

Culture is Transnational

Culture, in a singular idea, is all of those things that come from past generations. The things that have been passed down to us from our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. It is the stories, the music, the folklore, the ideas, and beliefs that we carry forward for future generations. Szulc (2022) wrote in the International Journal of Cultural Studies that culture in the modern-day concept and idea is already fundamentally transnational for various reasons. “Culture is transnational. It is now more transnational than ever, in times of rapid digital developments, intensified cultural exchanges, and large migration flows” (Szulc, 2022). Despite the issues that create division in our society, today’s digital age makes it easier than ever to share in one’s culture, and the internet and social media allow you to exchange ideas, open the door for meaningful conversations, and find common ground between yourself and someone you may not realize shares your beliefs.

Transnationalism ties together ideas that are specific to a time and place in one’s culture. Transnationalism begins with “Connectedness across borders, the formality/informality of frequent cross-border activities and practices, and the high intensity and degree of cross-border exchanges are the main characteristics of transnationalism” (Tedeschi et al., 2022). So many aspects of our lives could be seen as inherent to our culture, beliefs, and country, when we cross these borders we are collecting ideas and thoughts. And most importantly exchanging this with each other comes across all borders both literal and figuratively. Transnationalism is, ultimately, a way to share those inherent characteristics with others outside of our culture or country. When we think of transnationalism, that perspective is the key that opens doors to share with others with confidence and pride in what we bring to the table.

It can be a way for us to show each other that no one way of doing things, no one country or culture, is better or worse than any other; they are just different. It is a way to embrace those differences and learn from them, and breaking bread is a fantastic way to create those opportunities to converse, exchange ideas and beliefs, and share in what makes every culture unique, valuable, and essential to the world.

Bringing it Together: Food and Culture as Transnational

If transnationalism is the cross-border interactions and sharing of beliefs, ideas, and social understanding, and food is one of the many aspects of daily life that both defines and strengthens culture, it becomes clearer how food can be one of many things that can transcend borders and can even influence our own culture if we open ourselves to such influence. “Cross-cultural food practices are often present in multicultural societies and as a result, culture is constantly evolving when different food practices come into contact with each other” (Reddy & Van Dam, 2020). Through the transnational act of breaking bread, we learn from each other what gives us pride in our respective cultures and often influences one another to help all cultures sustain in a time when division and border closures seek to separate us. Like history, music, traditional stories, and cultural beliefs, food is a cornerstone of every culture. “Developed beliefs and practices around food are essentially used to aid in the formation of cultural norms and ideas. In turn, these ideas are reinforced by passing the beliefs and practices down the generational line through oral traditions, keeping them preserved for future generations” (Sperry, 2021). Food is one of the many things that can help us sustain our cultural identity, but the sharing of food can help us expand our cultural identity and inspire new ways of being. So, if you ever have the opportunity, take time to break bread with your neighbor, your friend, your colleague, or anyone else. Take time to learn about their beliefs and their culture, and it won’t take long for you to realize your culture and theirs may not be so different after all. Breaking bread with each other can be just one of many ways we can break the barriers that are rising to keep us divided.

Works Cited

Anderson, L. & Ingram, R. (2020). Introduction. Transhispanic food culture studies: Defining the subfield. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 97(4).

Anthony Bourdain. (n.d.). Inspiring Quotes.com. https://www.inspiringquotes.com/8-delicious-quotes-on-how-food-connects-us-all/Y6B-E8nflgAICOHo.

Boccagni, P., & Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (2020). Integration and struggle to turn space into “our” place:

Homemaking as a way beyond the stalemate of assimilationism vs transnationalism. International Migration, 61(1).

Lawrence, B. & Tushman, M. (2020). Food traditions and its national identity. International Digital Organization for Scientific Research, 5(1).

Reddy, G., & Van Dam, R. M. (2020). Food, culture, and identity in multicultural societies: Insights from Singapore. Appetite, 149.

Sperry, A. J. (2021). Eating Jamaica: How food is used as a tool to create and reinforce cultural identity. World History Connected, 18(1).

Szulc, L. (2022). Culture is transnational. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 26(1).

Tedeschi, M., Vorobeva, E., & Jauhiainen. (2022). Transnationalism: Current debates and new perspectives. Geojournal, 87(1).

by Christopher Rzigalinski, Managing Editor, Riverside Campus

April 29, 2024 marks the 64th anniversary of Austin’s first large-scale lunch counter sit-ins to protest segregated restaurants. The actions were Austin’s entry into a progressive civil rights strategy of passive resistance that began in earnest on February 1 of that year, after a group of African American students sat-in at a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s counter (History.com Editors, 2022).

Similar demonstrations were staged across the country, resulting in protesters being arrested for trespassing, beaten, and, in some cases, murdered. Their sacrifices led to the re-examination of segregationist service policies and, by extension, a critique of institutional racism in the United States. Hunger served as a pivotal symbol by both mirroring the biological sameness of all human beings and acting as an alarm to signal social inequities.

Food is central to understanding the African diasporic experience in the United States. Culinary historian and James Beard Lifetime Award Winner Jessica B. Harris argues that Texas occupied a complex space for enslaved people in the 19th Century as both a gateway to freedom and as a multicultural intersection. In High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America, Harris notes that enslaved people from Africa were forced into the territory of New Spain by Europeans as early as 1528, cross-culturally shaping the region by synthesizing their traditional recipes with those of Spanish and Native American cuisines (Harris, 2011). These practices continued for nearly three hundred years until enslaved peoples were freed under Mexican independence in 1821. This mélange inspired those who felt marginalized on the East Coast.

The third annual Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Color (“News from Texas”) was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1833. Debate about how to escape from racist oppression led to a vote for mass immigration to Texas (Harris, 2011). From afar, Texas appeared to be a refuge. However, tensions between Tejanos and the Mexican government were on the eve of erupting into another revolution. When Texas became an independent republic in 1836, its government reinstated slavery laws. By 1845 it was annexed to the United States as a slave state. The Civil War broke out shortly thereafter in 1861, leading to a Texan alignment with the Confederacy.

When Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army ordered the final enslaved Texans freed on June 19, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, African American cuisine took on a new importance. Jessica Harris reflects:

[T]he backbone of Juneteenth celebrations had always been the table. In the early years, those who had toiled in sorrow’s kitchen commemorated their liberty with some serious eating. Picnics and barbecues were the hallmarks of the early celebrations, and groaning boards covered with bright cloths offered specialities like barbecued ribs and fried chicken and myriad variations on summer produce like black-eyed peas, peaches, and watermelon (Harris, 2011).

In a society of oppression, sharing food was a subversive act that expressed hard-won freedom.

Laws enforcing segregation at the state and local levels took hold following the Civil War. Reconstruction, the Federal Government’s attempt to rebuild Southern states by creating employment, land cultivation, and political office opportunities for those who were formerly enslaved, fizzled by 1877. President Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor, and other conservative Southern Democrats stymied progress by calling for the return of land to its original owners and arguing that state governments should be in charge of their own rebuilding (Manevitz, 2020). The resulting “Jim Crow” laws enforced segregationist policies through the division of public spaces like water fountains, movie theaters, and restaurants.

Almost one hundred years later, the Greensboro Four challenged the separation of public spaces in 1960. Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil, young Black men studying at North Carolina’s Agriculture and Technical College, took seats at their local Woolworth’s lunch counter and asked to be served. The request sent shock waves through America and reinvigorated the civil rights movement. Moreover, it illustrated the power of student voices to challenge a broken system. Protests sprang up across the South, including Texas. San Antonio became the first major Southern city to integrate its lunch counters on March 16, 1960 (“San Antonio Woolworth’s Building,” 2020).

To get ahead of any conflicts in the state’s capitol, a conference was arranged by the Austin Commission on Human Relations and held in a meeting room at the Austin National Bank. African American community leaders from East Austin and a delegation of students met with operators of downtown cafeterias, cafes, and lunch counters. Reverend Brandoch Lovely of the Austin Unitarian Church served as the spokesperson for the community and student leaders. He was quoted in the Austin Statesman on April 20, 1960, saying he hoped for a “‘peaceable adjustment’” (Weddell, Jr., 1960). Lovely went on to say, “‘There is a necessity for both sides to act with responsibility,…Negro students have shown a willingness to negotiate, and I hope the restaurant operators will adopt the same attitude’” (Weddell, Jr., 1960).

Austin Bureau of the News journalist Richard Morehead reported an update on April 29. “Congress Avenue, the capital’s main business district, was picketed Wednesday by students urging integration of lunch counters,” (Morehead, 1960) he noted. “The demonstrators indicated they plan to stage sitdowns by Saturday unless segregation is dropped in downtown eating places” (Morehead, 1960). The threat prompted businesses in major areas like those on the corner of Sixth and Congress to close their soda fountains, fixtures of mid-century drug stores and eateries. Other establishments put chains on their doors and only let in white customers.

Moorehead’s article also revealed that the protesters were multiracial and of mixed genders. “White and Negro students–both male and female–participated in the picketing on both sides of Congress Avenue from Sixth Street to Eleventh, [the] edge of the State Capitol Grounds” (Morehead, 1960). In total, over 200 picketing students came from the University of Texas-Austin, St. Edward’s University, Huston-Tillotson University, and local theological seminaries. Without resolution that day, approximately 100 students occupied seven lunch counters across the aforementioned area, peacefully requesting that Black patrons be served the same as white ones.

Surprisingly, little information exists about the sit-ins in city archives like those of the Briscoe Center for American History at UT-Austin and the Austin History Center. However, a wealth of coverage was devoted to their aftermaths. State legislatures took aim. On March 10, 1961, the Austin Statesman reported on HB 797, a bill making it “unlawful ‘for any person or group of persons’ to enter a privately owned commercial enterprise and remain there after being requested to leave, ‘or after it appears unequivocally that the presence of such person or group of persons is undesirable and unwanted by the owner or management of such enterprise’” (Capitol Staff, 1961). Ironically, the article also specified that the bill’s text noted that “provisions are to be applied ‘without regard whatsoever to race, color, or creed…’” (Capitol Staff, 1961).

Christopher W. Schmidt argues that the nationwide sit-in movement made such an impact because of its innovation. “[Students] were not simply joining a battle that the older generation of civil rights activists were already waging,” (Schmidt, 2017) he writes. “They were striking out on their own, finding new points of vulnerability in the edifice of Jim Crow and locating new targets that resonated with their particular concerns and that aligned with their particular sources of strength” (Schmidt, 2017). Sit-in protesters altered the direction of the movement by putting their bodies on the line to expose the inhumane gesture of denying any person sustenance.

Diorama of student protesters staging a sit-in for lunch counter integration in the early 1960s, part of the “Standing Up for Sitting Down” installation at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN. Source: Wikimedia Commons Fair Use

As the sixties wore on, passive resistance faded into more pronounced demonstrations like large-scale marches, Black Power militarism advocated by Stokely Carmichael, and the community service-based activism of the Black Panther Party. Arguably, the Panthers’ greatest interventions were the Free Breakfast for School Children and Free Food Program initiatives started in 1969 (Magoon, 2023).

The former’s aim was to satiate starving children in impoverished neighborhoods so they could concentrate on learning. The latter aimed to serve families and communities that otherwise would go hungry. Black Panther Party activity was relatively quiet in Austin during the group’s original tenure, instead being more concentrated in Texas cities like Houston (Smith, 2016). That changed when the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, founded in 2001, continued the legacy of food activism. Its Austin chapter made news over that year’s Thanksgiving holiday by distributing turkeys and food baskets to families in need (Apple, 2001).

One recognizable manifestation of the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins in contemporary Austin is the fact that low-income Black and Brown neighborhoods in East Austin are still classified as “food insecure” or “food deserts” (Contreras, 2022). Formal segregation was dismantled, though its residual currents still divide the city.

This April, when eating out in any Austin public space, let’s offer a non-denominational prayer of gratitude for those who made it possible for us to share those meals together. Let’s also keep an open seat at our tables for the next leaders who will feed this hungry legacy.

Works Cited

Jones, A. (2012). Diorama of Lunch Counter Sit-Down Protests – National Civil Rights Museum – Downtown Memphis – Tennessee – USA – 01 [Photograph]. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diorama_of_Lunch_Counter_Sit-Down_Protests_-_National_Civil_Rights_Museum_-_Downtown_Memphis_-_Tennessee_-_USA_-_01.jpg.

Standing up by sitting down: Student Sit-Ins 1960. (n.d.). https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/standing-up-by-sitting-down.

[Greensboro Four photograph]. (1960). Public Domain.
https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

[Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In photograph]. 1960. African American Odyssey – Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/educate/lunch.html.

Apple, L. (2001). Lone Star Panthers. Austin Chronicle, https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2001-12-07/83919/.

Capitol Staff. (1960). House Bill Is Aimed at Curtailing Sit-Ins. Austin Statesman.

Contreras, N. E. (2022). Austin Approves Resolution Aimed at Combating Food Insecurity in Food-Insecure Areas. Austin-American Statesman. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2022/04/21/austin-city-council-resolution-food-insecurity-bus-routes-grocery-stores/7381822001/.

Harris, J. (2011). High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey From Africa to America. Bloomsbury.

History.com Editors. (2022). Greensboro Sit-In. History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/the-greensboro-sit-in.

Manevitz, A. (2020). Failures of Reconstruction Have Never Been More Evident or Relevant Than Today. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/11/failures-
reconstruction-have-never-been-more-evident-or-relevant-than-today/.
Magoon, K. (2023). Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to The People. Candlewick Press.

Morehead, R. M. (1960). “Student Pickets in Austin Ask for Integration.” Austin Bureau of the News.

News From Texas. From the Austin Citizen. Colored Conventions Project. Retrieved March 10, 2024. https://omeka.coloredconventions.org/items/show/1616.

San Antonio Woolworth’s Building 2020. World Monuments Fund. https://www.wmf.org/
project/san-antonio-woolworth-building.

Schmidt, C. W. (2017). Why the 1960 Lunch Counter Sit-Ins Worked: A Case Study of Law and Social Movement Mobilization. Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality.
https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=ijlse.

Smith. C. H. (2016). Remembering Houston’s Black Panthers. Houston Chronicle.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/The-Black-Panthers-The-original-Black-Lives-6833943.php.

Wray, W. Jr. (1960). Talks Called Here Today to Avert Possible Sit-Ins. Austin Statesman.

Category: Staff Contributor

From Breaking Bread to Breaking Barriers

Hungry Legacy: On the 64th Anniversary of Austin’s Lunch Counter Sit-Ins