Culturally Sensitive Cafeteria Food At Colleges

College Students Demand Culturally Sensitive Cafeteria Food

Tina Nguyen | December 22, 2015

Across college campuses nationwide, student activists are leading mass movements against institutional racism in higher education. Mizzou students successfully ousted their president after he failed to respond to several racially motivated incidents on campus. Yale students demanded a more robust dedication to faculty diversity and sensitivity to racially offensive Halloween costumes. The University of Oklahoma is investigating its Greek system after a video leaked of frat brothers singing a song referencing lynching.
At Oberlin College, students just want some culturally conscious General Tso’s chicken.

The culinary culprits included a soggy, pulled-pork-and-coleslaw sandwich that tried to pass itself off as a traditional Vietnamese banh mi sandwich; a Chinese General Tso’s chicken dish made with steamed instead of fried poultry; and some poorly prepared Japanese sushi.

“When you’re cooking a country’s dish for other people, including ones who have never tried the original dish before, you’re also representing the meaning of the dish as well as its culture,” Tomoyo Joshi, a student from Japan, told the paper. “So if people not from that heritage take food, modify it and serve it as ‘authentic,’ it is appropriative.”

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/oberlin-protest-dining-hall-food

<more at http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/oberlin-protest-dining-hall-food; related links: http://iwf.org/blog/2798937/Students-Complain:-Serving-Ethnic-Food-in-the-Campus-Cafeteria-Is- (Students Complain: Serving Ethnic Food in the Campus Cafeteria Is "Culturally Appropriative". December 21, 2015) and http://ijournalccc.com/articles/content/improving-student-retention-role-cafeteria (Improving Student Retention: The Role of the Cafeteria. Summer 2011)>