By Alexia Finney | Staff Writer

A tradition has lived on for generations: tamales bubbling over a large cooking pot, the smell of masa and fresh spices filling the air, friends and family gathered around a long table savoring the taste of their culture’s food. Despite the warmth and joy these traditions evoke, one Baylor professor says a harmful immigrant narrative in the U.S. is gaining ground.

John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America and Professor of History Dr. Felipe Hinojosa and his co-author, Dr. Rudy Guevarra, released the book “Culinary Mestizaje: Racial Mixing and Foodways Across the United States” in July 2025. By providing insightful research and personal anecdotes, the book confronts the notion that immigrants harm the communities they join.

Hinojosa, who teaches Latino history, Mexican-American history and courses on U.S. foreign policy, immigration, race and culture, said food is central to Latino culture and identity in the U.S.

“For the most part, you’re gonna have working-class populations that have started their own businesses and are not part of big chain restaurants,” Hinojosa said. “That’s really the essence of Latino culture and identity in this country. It’s very entrepreneurial and centered around food and community and sharing with one another.”

Hinojosa and Guevarra aim to challenge negative stereotypes, especially now as political tensions rise. Hinojosa said while immigrants are under attack and being picked up off the streets, it’s an important story to tell.

“It came out of a real need to talk about how immigrants contribute to this country, how immigrants make America great,” Hinojosa said. “Immigrants are the lifeblood of our labor industries — people that work in the fields, people that work in the factories, people that have taco trucks.”

In a 2025 KJZZ live radio interview, Guevarra said he merges the concept of cultural blending and life itself through food. Guevarra said this stems from his upbringing in a Mexican-Filipino household where culinary fusion was common practice.

“We always had a pot of rice, and we also had tortillas,” Guevarra said. “So let’s say, for example, we had some pork adobo and we didn’t have any rice, we ran out of rice. I would just grab a tortilla, scoop up the meat, and boom, you got a taco. It was just part of our cultures and the blending and how it mixes, and it shows up in one of the most amazing foods ever, and that’s a taco.”

Guevarra said in the same interview that food’s power lies in both memory and history.

“When you see all these different stories, you’re looking at white supremacy and racism, colonialism, enslavement and genocide,” Guevarra said. “It’s not just a kumbaya moment, but it evolves over time. And that’s what people experience in a dish that has all this behind it.”

While the book focuses on different cultures and communities, Hinojosa said his perspective on historical immigration patterns in the United States lies in the history he teaches. Past policies have targeted immigrants, such as in the Chinese Exclusion Act of the 19th century, the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s, the Mexican repatriation campaigns during the Great Depression and Operation Wetback in the 1950s.

“That ‘immigrants take jobs’ narrative is a script in American history that keeps replaying,” Hinojosa said. “We have to continuously push back and fight against it.”

Hinojosa said there are examples of cultural creativity and resilience all around us in immigrant communities. Hinojosa cited one story of Chef’s Smoky, a taco truck in Atlanta. A Mexican immigrant opened the truck to feed people without access to food.

“He drew from African American food culture and traditions and also from Mexican traditions,” Hinojosa said. “That’s a new way the American South is changing with the large influx of Latino immigrants since the late 1990s.”

Hinojosa said he rejects the traditional “melting pot” metaphor, instead viewing America’s diversity as a form of cultural mixing.

“We think about how each of us brings our gifts, our culture, our perspectives, our worldviews to help build each other up and learn from each other,” Hinojosa said. “That doesn’t mean we have to forget who we are, our ancestry, our culture. It means we bring everything we are as human beings to America.”

Hinojosa said his ultimate goal is to encourage students to think critically about American identity. According to Hinojosa, new generations are changing what it means to have the American spirit.

“Food is at the forefront of all of that because we’re eating pupusas from El Salvador, we’re eating tacos from Mexico,” Hinojosa said. “I just hope students begin to understand the gifts we all bring and appreciate those gifts, and engage in conversation about what it means to be an American in 2025.”