While assimilationist pressures have told immigrants to learn English, support American economic and political culture and give up leftist politics, animal sacrifice and political allegiances abroad, other traits have been enshrined as “acceptable” markers of ethnic difference—costumes for school pageants, religious festivals and parades and, above all, food. Even on the universalist holiday of Thanksgiving, stuffings for the turkey and side dishes reflect regional and national heritages, which can also be celebrated at school and urban festivals. Some once-ethnic foods—hot dogs, pizza, tacos and kebabs, among others—have crossed over into a heterogeneous American cuisine. But family recipes, ethnic restaurants and neighborhoods and cookbooks also celebrate diversity and even cosmopolitan knowledge in the food-conscious late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Ethnic cuisine, in fact, implies an American standard, usually defined on the basis of regional variations on Anglo staples of meat, bread and potatoes, salads and vegetables, etc. Some ethnic cuisines have gone far beyond their own groups in altering this standard.

Italian foods like spaghetti and lasagna are staples of even Asian households. While Mexicans often face prejudice as immigrants, tacos are part of fast-food culture at home and in drive-ins.

Other cuisines have demanded ingredients, markets and restaurants that provide economic stakes for immigrant populations as well as opportunities for “crossover.” While Chinese cuisines once adapted to American norms and palates, the growth of Asian populations after the 1960s supported more critical clienteles for specialties like dim sum, and other varieties of Chinese cuisine, as well as Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese food. Moreover, these restaurants and the markets that supply homes and businesses serve as places of employment, economic stakes and social centers for ethnic communities.

The price of ethnic food varies. Japanese food, for example, often demands high-end prices (given ingredients in sushi and sashimi). High-prestige foods move beyond the label of ethnicity—especially French and Northern Italian cuisine. Meanwhile, other cuisines, especially those of Africa, remain exotic.

Fashion also comes into play as Americans treat food as adventure as well as comfort.

Fads have established Spanish, Thai, Mediterranean and, in the late 1990s, Latin American cuisine, as alternatives in trendy restaurants and cookbooks. In many cases, these claim an authenticity beyond the ethnic group established in the US.

The American melting-pot has also created fusion food. Some were produced outside of the US—Cuban Chinese immigrants, for example, pioneered fusion. French with Thai (and other Asian) cuisine, Pacific Rim cuisine and new American chefs have taken ethnic dishes as building blocks for culinary renovation shocking to ancestral countries.

Hence ethnicity in food, as in other areas of American life, is both a heritage and a starting point in shaping identities, interactions and markets.