This thesis explores the cultural politics of Filipino cuisine in Canada. Filipinos are the fourth largest visible minority group in Canada yet their cuisine remains underrepresented in the Canadian foodscape compared to other Asian groups. By comparing Winnipeg and Ottawa's contexts, I explore how Filipino cuisine entrepreneurs "do" Filipino cuisine through their establishments. I also examine potential explanations as to why Filipino cuisine is not mainstream. The findings suggest that the underrepresentation of Filipino cuisine can be attributed to structural barriers (colonialism and institutional racism) and the low incidence of Filipino entrepreneurship. Through culinary entrepreneurial practices, Filipino cuisine entrepreneurs engage in a politics of resistance and identity work. For some, the production of Filipino cuisine is implicated in the struggle against cultural assimilation. For others, it is an act of cultural pride and a politics of representation that seeks to disrupt the "hypervisibility" and "invisibility" of Filipino-Canadians and Filipino cuisine. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this thesis was a transformative and cathartic experience. It has changed the way I think about my Filipino-Canadian identity; although accomplishing this was not easy. Through this research I learned that like so many other 1.5 generation and second generation Filipinos, I exhibited "colonial mentality"a form of internalised racism among subaltern groups (David 2013; David, Petalio and Sharma 2017). Growing up, I rejected my Filipino heritage and felt no pride in my culture due to negative encounters with members of my extended family and others in Winnipeg's Filipino community. I thought that "all Filipinos are the same" (of course, while excluding myself from that evaluation), leading me to distance myself from the Filipino community. While conducting my field work, I later discovered from my conversations with other Filipinos that I was not alone in my struggles and negative encounters. This would later lead me to reconsider my negative assessment of Filipino people and Filipino culture. I encountered nothing but kindness and generosity from other Filipinos, which was a stark contrast from what I grew up with. Perhaps, I thought, I was wrong to generalize. Later on, when I became engaged in postcolonial Filipino literature I realised that my negative experiences, along with many others, could be attributed to a larger system of colonialism in the Philippines-it was then I connected my experiences to "colonial mentality." Arriving to this realisation was difficult to accept at first, however, it is necessary to accept painful truths about oneself in order to "decolonize" the mind (Decena 2014). Decolonizing the mind was the first step to rediscovering a part of my identity that I had locked away and buried in the sand for so long. This thesis has contributed to my growth as an academic and as a person. None of this would have been possible without the help of countless people who were at my side over the past two yea...
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