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“Kikkoman, USA”: The Economic and Residential Integration of Japanese Americans and Japanese Foods
- Journal of Asian American Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 23, Number 2, June 2020
- pp. 265-295
- 10.1353/jaas.2020.0020
- Article
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ABSTRACT:
This article follows the spread of Japanese dishes, tastes, and ingredients into new markets and new regions, a movement stimulated by Japanese Americans at all levels of the food industry chain. Japanese American restaurants, stores, and importers provided access to nonethnics with novel retailing and marketing strategies. Just as critically, ordinary Japanese Americans were a vital part of the supply chain, as their dispersal into new residential areas provided a consumer foundation for a parallel integration of Japanese-imported soy sauce. Building on the literatures of food and urban history, this article argues that the integration of Japanese foods into mainstream tastes depended on Japanese American economic and residential integration in the wider San Francisco metropolitan region.