New york jews and chinese food: The Social Construction of an Ethnic Pattern

Abstract

For more than 50 years, the children and grandchildren of Jews who immigrated from Eastern Europe to New York City have loved Chinese restaurant food and incorporated it into their new culture and identity as New York Jews. This practice goes against the general sociological understanding that ethnic groups form their identities out of their “traditional” customs. Using a combination of qualitative methods and analytic tools, the researchers provide an analysis of the New York Jewish attachment to Chinese food by focusing on the meanings that Jews projected onto the food. The article demonstrates how patterns of ethnic cultures in general, and of this one in particular, are recursive; that is, socially constructed meanings become the raw materials for new cultural creations. © 1993, SAGE Periodicals Press. All rights reserved.