Consuming the Archive: Calorie Counting and Americanization in Spanish-Language Newspapers

This paper addresses how the most popular and oldest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States, La Opinion popularized notions about nutrition science and meal etiquette for their readership in 1965-1970. Mapping the etiquette and nutrition science advice in La Opinion reveals the gendered aspects as well as racialization of Latinas/os in the United States. Further, nutrition advice and etiquette entered the home in ways that parallel the early 1900s Americanization projects. Through nutrition advice and etiquette, we are able to witness how the border expands beyond its physical existence as people navigate between their traditional foodways and those infringed onto them and positioned by scientists as the better ways of eating. This paper addresses three columns including, Personalidad y Elegancia (Personality and Elegance), Charlas Femininas (Feminine Chats), and Etiqueta-Buenos Modales (Etiquette-Good Manners) all which use nutrition science as a justification to push Americanization in the home. The advice provided by these columns situate “good” women as those who understand and use science against “bad” women who opt for cultural foodways. Subsequently, the paper addresses the responses by the community through the phenomenal rise in Latin American foods and food brands in the mid-twentieth century. The demand for Mexican and Latin American foods led to the transplant of innovative technologies from Latin America to the United States. While nutrition science trickled into the lives of regular people as Americanization efforts and tried to sway the community to adopt new ways of eating, technology and innovation entered into the United States as the food industry could not meet the high demand for Latin American foods. The inconsistency from these two approaches to food is where this study unravels illustrating the scientific and cultural aspects of eating. The archive used for this study further illustrates the creativity of researchers.