Why We Need To Stop Labeling Asian-Latinx Food As “Fusion” Refinery29 2 hrs ago Niki Nakazawa As the daughter of a Japanese-American father and Uruguayan mother, growing up in the predominantly white suburbs of Boston, I was often put in the position of explaining myself. Among my teachers and peers, I was considered a “cultural curiosity.” I was subject to chauvinist assumptions about my background, the foods I ate at home, and my personal interests. In reality, I was raised eating a hodgepodge of cuisines, including my Japanese-American grandmother’s fruit salad with supremed grapefruit, canned mandarin oranges, and maraschino cherries, and my Uruguayan grandmother’s steak milanesas and tortilla de papas. How all of these foods ended up on my dinner table is not straightforward and provides a window into my family members’ particular tastes. At the same time, it speaks to our shared experiences of the diaspora, migration, and cultural history. In the food and beverage industry, where I work, “fusion” is the catch-all term used to describe the cuisine that combines ingredients and culinary traditions from different regions and cultures. However, the notion of “fusion” obscures the stories — lots of them — of people of diverse backgrounds whose lives and cuisines have been marked by shared colonial histories and trade routes.