So, Chili isn’t Mexican

“Chili con carne, now plain ol’ chili, was a harbinger of things to come for Mexican food. It was a Mexican dish, made by Mexicans for Mexicans, but it was whites who made the dish a national sensation, who pushed it far beyond its ancestral lands, who adapted it to their tastes, who created companies for large-scale production, and who ultimately became its largest consumer to the point that the only thing Mexican about it was the mongrelized Spanish in its name” (Arellano 37).

I was surprised to hear Dr. Alvarez say that chili is not a Mexican dish in one of our first classes. I don’t think I was alone in thinking all my life that it was Mexican and this excerpt further touches on this concept a bit. Arellano specifies that it was initially a Mexican meal, however, it was white people who altered, or even doctored, it in a way that popularized it for business and mass production.

This falsification stripped what was originally regarded as “chile” of a great deal of its Mexican authenticity. “Chili con carne” is at least moderately more related to its original form, but even that name doesn’t necessarily fully provide it with justice. This is yet another example of cultural appropriation and how whites have manipulated a meal intended to be “made by Mexicans for Mexicans”.

For these reasons, it’s quite likely Mexican folks would take great exception if someone like me said to them that chili is Mexican. There’s a sort of an underlying meaning to it as well; “chili” is an Americanized version of “chili con carne”, but more importantly, this tampered-with style was utilized merely as a money-maker in spite of what Mexicans designed it for.

Arellano, Gustavo. Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America (p. 37). Scribner. Kindle Edition.