Halal Habichuelas: Food, Belonging, and the Conundrums of Being a Puerto Rican Muslim

Abstract

Based on multiple years of ethnographic fieldwork alongside Puerto Rican Muslims in Puerto Rico and the United States, this article explores issues of identification and belonging among Puerto Rican converts to Islam, as expressed in their food practices. As "quadruple minorities"-Muslim among Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican among Muslims, and both Puerto Rican and Muslim in the shadow of American empire-I suggest that Puerto Rican converts seek ways to restore a sense of coherence and selfhood through cooking, consuming, and forming community around food. For Puerto Rican Muslim converts, hale l consumption practices are about more than making their food, drink, or actions permissible; they are also about making their very identifications permissible, what one interlocutor called "Boricua hale l."This focus on religious actors' food practices showcases affective encounters with what we call religion in the everyday, showing matter's ability to reflect the quotidian complexity of late-modern lifeworlds.