No, immigrants aren’t eating dogs and cats – but Trump’s claim is part of an ugly history of myths about immigrant foodways

A sign at a popular hot dog restaurant in Chicago reads ‘Immigrants eat our dogs,’ on Sept. 12, 2024, two days after the presidential debate. Scott Olson/Getty Images^[7]

The legend of delicious pets

The myth of eating pets traces back to old legends in Europe, Australia and the United States that “immigrants are stealing our cats and dogs for their dinner tables or to serve in ethnic restaurants^[8],” writes the folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand.

Two of the most common food-based legends center on “Oriental restaurants serving dog (or cat) meat, and legends about Asian immigrants in the United States capturing and cooking people’s pets,” Brunvard writes.

By 1883, the legend was so well-established that the Chinese-American journalist Wong Chin Foo^[9] offered US$500 to anybody in New York^[10] for proof that Chinese people were eating cats or rats. No proof was found, but that didn’t stop the racist jokes or urban legends.

None of the many examples deserve retelling. But scholars, for example, have cited “sick jokes^[11]” such as a “new Vietnamese cookbook is titled 100 Ways to Wok Your Dog.”

Or as comedian Tessie Chua^[12] joked about her multiracial Chinese, Filipino and Irish identity in 1993 when she said, “That means I eat dog, but only if I can wash it down with Guinness Stout!”

In 1971, mainstream news outlets, including Reuters, reported an “outrageously silly urban legend^[13]” of a pet poodle named Rosa served at a Hong Kong restaurant, complete with chili sauce and bamboo shoots.

In 1980, Stockton, California, was seized by racist rumors^[14] of Vietnamese families stealing expensive purebred dogs for dinner.

As recently as 2005^[15], the TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” showed wedding guests vomiting^[16] after being misinformed that they had eaten a German shepherd named Oscar, prepared by a Korean-American florist. “Oscar is bulgogi!^[17],” Larry David cries.

Scholars calls these tropes a “nativist backlash^[18]” and “vehicle for anti-immigrant^[19] and especially anti-Asian sentiments in the U.S.”

A long history of food-based slurs

More precise, maybe, than the adage that “we are what we eat” is that we are what we won’t eat. Shunning our neighbor for their vile food – stinky, strange, unpalatable – is also decidedly an American tradition.

“Garlic eater” was at one time recognizable in the U.S. as an ethnic slur^[20] for Italian Americans in the early 20th century. The names “spaghetti bender” and “grape stomper” were also used, but “garlic eater” stuck because, as one scholar argued, “garlic served as an ‘olfactory signifier’” – a distinguishing odor – “for the alien who consumed it.”

So when far-right radical Laura Loomer^[21] tweeted in September 2024 that the White House “will smell like curry^[22]” if Kamala Harris becomes president, she was also using food to stoke racist fears.

Americans aren’t alone in doing this. Some Persians call Punjabis “dal khor,”^[23] meaning dal-eater, and some Romanians call Italians “macaronar,” meaning macaroni-eater. Both are slurs. Iranians have been known to call Arabs^[24] “malakh-khor,” or locust-eater, and Southern Italians sometimes call Northern Italians^[25] “polentoni,” or polenta-eater.

To an outsider, being called a lentil- or polenta-eater seems more like praise for a healthy diet than a racial epithet, but such are the vagaries of racism: People hate who they hate and justify it however possible.

Other examples of how food can distinguish communities abound. In the Amazon, the Parakanã people appreciate tapir^[26] meat but abhor monkey. The Arara people, their neighbors, feel the opposite. Both groups are disgusted^[27] by one another. Curry, garlic, tapir, polenta, lentils – it doesn’t matter what the nail is, but how the hammer hits.

Philomene Philostin, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Haitian origin, works in her store in Springfield, Ohio, that caters mainly to Haitian residents. Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images^[28]

Rumors with real-life consequences

Urban legends about food and racist rumors can have serious consequences. Earlier in 2024, a false rumor that a Laotian and Thai restaurant^[29] in Fresno, California, cooked pit bulls led to such vile harassment that the owner, David Rasavong, moved the restaurant to a new location^[30].

After Trump repeated the myth^[31] during the debate that immigrants eat pets, Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, quickly became the target of bomb threats^[32], forcing city buildings and schools to close. Members of the Haitian community have said they fear for their safety^[33].

But there’s a more hopeful side to the issue of food being used as a way to divide or unite people, too. The Latin origins for the words company and companionship^[34] mean the people we share our bread with.

Garlic is now as central to American cuisine as apple pie. Nowadays, Americans are so much the better for the sushi, garlic and curry – and the diversity behind the deliciousness – that flavor American cuisine.

Authors: Adrienne Bitar, Lecturer, Cornell University

Read more https://theconversation.com/no-immigrants-arent-eating-dogs-and-cats-but-trumps-claim-is-part-of-an-ugly-history-of-myths-about-immigrant-foodways-239343

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