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I thought you might enjoy this video of my conversation with Anand Giridharadas of the wonderful Substack The Ink. We start with a discussion of how ICE’s anonymity (through mask-wearing and refusing to show badges and identification), which was not the norm for ICE before Donald Trump returned to power, is designed to create terror. It also empowers ICE agents to act lawlessly.
Then we transition to a discussion of food: authoritarian food politics, the importance of food for immigrant communities, and how food is also a way for others to discover different cultures. Anand and I are both first-generation Americans and we talk about how food marks America as a multiethnic and multiracial country. My weekly outings with my father to Teheran Market in Santa Monica, California, were a fixture of my childhood. It was the only place, he insisted, where you could get good pita, hummus, rose water, and other Middle Eastern specialties.
