My Year of Meats

What is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the American identity? Coca Cola beverages? The sport of baseball? Dare I mention apple pie? Allow me to dig a little deeper. The American identity is built on the premise of opportunity and individualistic expression. A multitude of customs and practices have blended into a diversified culture that allows the American tradition to differ from the cultures of other countries.

In Ruth L. Ozeki’s book, My Year of Meats, she showcases the differences that exist between both American and Japanese cultures and, in the process, reveals the true nature behind the American identity. Ozeki’s character Jane Takagi-Little, the director of My American Wife, attempts to link Japanese housewives to America through the concept of food preparation. The food item she and her producers emphasized greatly was beef. Jane’s vision was to produce a show that documented the personal lives of average American families in order to demonstrate the diverse and unique customs associated with America (9). However, Jane’s producers didn’t agree with her vision. They believed that it was imperative to showcase families that Japanese citizens could readily recognize and identify as being American. These families were expected to consist of white members belonging to the middle or upper classes of society. In addition to this, the families had to be attractive and free of blemishes (12). Families such as these were considered to define the prototypical American family, and only these families would be appealing to the Japanese audience.

This concept immediately caught my attention. It became quite clear that Japanese citizens envisioned American families as being structured, harmonious, and overall perfect. America families come in a plethora of shapes and sizes, and not all families look alike and live perfect lives. Therefore, any family depicted as such couldn’t possibly be authentic. This sense of perfection is also emphasized in Anne Allison’s article “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus”. In this article, Allison discusses the immense responsibility given to Japanese mothers during the preparation of the obento lunches for their children. The obento meals were expected to be perfectly constructed in both appearance and proportions (84). This is how the mothers showed their love. The Japanese mothers dedicated time to this task, and failure to effectively construct the obento meant failure as a mother. In a sense, the Japanese identity is becoming dependent on its connection to American practices. Is this priority for perfection caused by the desire of Japanese mothers to become more like idealized American mothers?

                It’s a mind game and an affair of illusions. Japanese housewives are willing to live their lives according to the American standard. The producers of My American Wife took advantage of this concept. By fabricating ideal American families cooking meals consisting of beef, Japanese citizens could become immersed in the façade and be tricked into believing they were participants of the American culture. However, it’s important to note that this was more of a marketing strategy to make Japanese households purchase more American beef. The end result remains the same; Japanese citizens receiving false ideas about the American culture.

Jane, however, didn’t agree with this premise. She believed that it was important to provide an accurate depiction of America to her viewing audience. One such documentary was that done on the Martinez family. Alberto Martinez was a debilitated farmworker who emigrated from Mexico with his wife Catalina.  Both Alberto and his wife worked tediously in order to support the family and were eventually able to purchase their own barn and acres of land (58). The Martinez family exemplifies the concept that has become known as the American dream. They moved away from their homes in Mexico in order to better their lives and provide their son Bobby with an opportunity to live a good life. In the process, they were able to widen the viewer’s understanding of what it truly means to be American. Jane also chose to film them preparing burritos instead of ordinary beef dishes. This helped to establish a sense of individualism and introduce a sense of rich diversity that characterizes America.

By depicting the American identity, Ozeki was able to highlight glaring differences exist among the cultures. Americans aren’t as strict as the Japanese with their meals. In fact, Ozeki mentions that Japanese housewives prefer to receive their foods from vending machines instead of interacting with people behind counters (87). Also, Americans place a heavier emphasis on guns ownership and protection. It is because of this custom, Ozeki asserts, that the American culture is viewed by the Japanese as one being rooted in violence (89). The Japanese culture places a huge emphasis on wives bearing children. This concept was illustrated throughout the novel as Joichi continuously hounded his wife Akiko about her inability to become pregnant.

Even though these cultural practices differ, it’s important for people to interact with other cultures in order to learn and further understand the customs associated with them.

Fast Food Labor

        Whenever I enter a McDonald’s restaurant, I expect a systematic, scripted routine. I arrive with a particular order in mind and I am aware that the employee on duty is going to attempt to alter that order. The employee may attempt to persuade me to upgrade my drink size or hint that there is something I should add to my meal. When I decline, the crew members are going to assemble the pieces of my meal like a machine, deliver it to me, and merrily send me on my way. However, there is a much larger construct operating behind the scenes. Within this same system, female workers are succumbing to difficult conditions that threaten to strip their very identities away from them.

        The film Fast Food Women documented the labor conditions affecting the lives of Kentucky women occupying fast food jobs. The film further outlined the restrictions placed on women within the work force and how creativity is replaced by a desire for conformity. One restaurant from the film was Druthers Restaurant located in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Female Druthers employees were interviewed and described their workload as being incessant and chaotic. Due to the immense amounts of orders, employees rarely chatted and breaks were scarce. This fast paced service, coupled with compact space, lead to accidents like burns, sore feet, and overall exhaustion by the female workers. Similar experiences were shared by female McDonalds employee Zelphia Adams who worked twenty-five hours a week taking orders, cooking, sweeping, and performing other exhausting tasks that earned her under four dollars an hour. In addition to these conditions, the identities of the female workers were erased as their individuality was eliminated from the work system.

        Mike Kull, the senior executive vice president of Druthers Inc., claimed that the prosperity of any business is through establishing a system of rules and regulations. These rules must be obeyed by employees, and these same employees must exhibit content on following these procedures. This idea seems practical, but there is a notable consequence. If the system that Kull enforces is ideal, that would imply that creativity is shunned by Druthers executives. Why would managers prefer their employees to conform to a system that lacks individual expression? Barbara Garson, the author of The Electric Sweatshop, stated that employees are placed in an environment where they are forced to learn certain systematic skills. These repetitive skills become encoded within an employee’s mind and become a natural procedure that requires little thought. This, in a sense, transforms the employees from humans with free thought into machines with programmed orders.

        This concept was demonstrated by the female Pizza Hut employees such as Pam Banks, a former waitress, who were expected to remember certain protocol when greeting their customers. Essentially, these rules provide a structured and well-ordered unit of workers that are all capable of performing identical tasks. However, this eliminates distinctions among the workers and creates a distance between them and the company owners. In short, companies like Pizza Hut were distancing themselves from their female employees by transforming them into a uniform blend of replaceable parts. This transformation causes the company to devalue the female employees over time. If the employees aren’t valued by the company, that company has no incentive to provide them with either suitable working conditions or suitable pay. Also, the time and effort put into their jobs by these female workers is overlooked by the owners. The company focuses on production and, in a system of uniform workers, any of the interchangeable female workers can be replaced.

        The film also discussed how many of these female workers were forced to work in fast food facilities when their husbands loss their jobs at the coal mine. The livelihood of their families depended on the income produced by them. This creates a rift as the female workers become further distanced from their jobs and focus primarily on their duties within their homes. This concept of distancing is illustrated in Deborah Barndt’s article “On the Move for Food: Three Women Behind the Tomato’s Journey”. In her article, Barndt discusses the struggles demonstrated by three tomato pickers as they attempt to survive within their roles as female workers in a widespread economy. One story in particular is that of Irena. Irena worked four months of the year as a tomato picker on a farm in Ontario where she worked twelve hours a day for almost a full week. During her work, Irena moved away from her family in Mexico and lived in substandard housing conditions. Even though she received health care and pension payments, she only received minimum wage for her work and received no overtime or vacation pay (138).

         Bardnt comments on how Irena, as well as the other female workers in the article, are disconnected from their tomato work. Even though they spend most of their days picking tomatoes, these women experience no affectionate bond that links them to the tomatoes that arent delivered to their homes. Instead, their focus shifts to their domestic lives as they establish more personal attachments to foods that are produced and directly given to their families. This further distances the female workers from their jobs.

        It is important to note that this film was produced in 1992. In addition, not every employee was interviewed during this film. It cannot be assumed that all employees share similar experiences as these Kentucky workers. The same can be said for the tomato pickers discussed in Barndt’s article. What cannot be ignored however, is the fact that the value of female workers continues to be diminished in food systems that desire to eliminate their identities.