Researcher ORCID Identifier

0009-0006-5095-2220

Graduation Year

2026

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Chicano Studies

Reader 1

Martha Gonzalez

Reader 2

Gilda Ochoa

Reader 3

Marina Perez de Mendiola

Rights Information

© 2026 Reyna G Silva Carrillo

Abstract

Food is more than just nourishment for the 1.5-generation, people who come to the United States as children and now navigate between cultures; it is a language of memory, resistance, and survival across borders. This project raises an important question: how do 1.5-generation students navigate identity, belonging, and survival through food, and how can a zine serve as a medium for sharing community knowledge? My project argues that food is an important way 1.5-generation students use language to remember, resist, and survive across borders. Using pláticas, an informal conversation-based approach, this project focuses on the experience of 1.5-generation students at the Claremont Colleges. Through these conversations, students shared recipes, memories, and histories of food, as well as word-of-mouth support networks, in response to inadequate institutional resources. This project investigated how food functions within these collective networks as a coping mechanism, a form of community-building, and a source of cultural grounding—dimensions that are often overlooked in academic research.

Throughout this project, 12 pláticas were held with Claremont College students who identify across a range of ethnic backgrounds, including Mexican, Uruguayan, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Chinese, and Indian. Students use food to connect with their culture and family while living and navigating college. While food plays a vital role in 1.5 generations' lives, food traditions are affected by cultural appropriation, limited access to ingredients, and a lack of institutional support. As a result, students have used food to build community, create informal networks of care, and maintain their cultural identities. Food is a tool for connection, survival, and resistance. This project shows the importance of honoring informal knowledge systems, such as zines,  recipes, and shared social and economic resources, as vital forms of cultural preservation, resistance, and care. Ultimately, resources move like recipes, passed hand to hand and voice to voice, carrying generational knowledge shaped by care, survival, and memory. Like recipes, they change with each telling, teaching us how to navigate unfamiliar systems while holding onto what came before us. Together, they become living archives of resistance, identity, and community that are sustained across time.

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