Parts unknown
Immigrant communities invigorate the American spirit — and dinner plate.
The American Dream is alive in Houston.
It is not only alive, Anthony Bourdain discovered on his trip to the Bayou City, but thriving.
The chef and critic saw the dream while gorging on Indo-Pakistani delights at Himalaya on Hillcroft, and while discussing the finer points of BBQ in Acres Homes.
The spirit of the red, white and blue popped from the TV screen when Bourdain chatted with ESL students over a cafeteria lunch at Lee High School. And Norman Rockwell himself couldn’t have done better than the Pearland home of Lee’s Vietnamese principal, where he and his Salvadorian wife treated Bourdain to a feast that included crawfish, pupusas and lots of beer.
Throughout the Houston-centric episode of Parts Unknown, which aired this week on CNN, Bourdain reveled in Houston’s culinary and cultural diversity. From Vietnamese shrimpers to Bollywood dancers and Congolese gardeners, national viewers saw a burgeoning confidence and optimism that lives in the shadow of B-roll freeway shots.
American liberty allows traditional culture to flourish and reinvent itself in new ways that would never happen elsewhere.
And yet, while the spices and tastes may seem radical or new, each of these individual communities stands on its own like a self-encapsulated Frank Capra town.
The Indo-Pakistani grocer isn’t being put out of business by Wal-Mart. The South Asian radio DJ hasn’t been replaced by an iHeartMedia national feed. Civic leaders and tight-knit families create a sense of pride in their new addition to the American melting pot.
These immigrant communities don’t yearn for the past, because the only thing in the rearview mirror is war, famine or oppression. By any measure, life is better in Houston. And the future is boundless for the next generation of aspiring doctors, engineers or entrepreneurs. Between the Texas Medical Center and oil patch, opportunity awaits for anyone ready to seize it.
The American Dream is alive in Houston. But that isn’t the story in other parts of our country.
Guardian photographer Chris Arnade has spent the past four years documenting addiction across the United States, and the journey has taken him to parts unknown to many Americans — urban ghettos and declining towns hollowed out by a changing economy and shifting society.
The institutions that once served as a civic foundation have rotted away.
“The things that used to give people meaning: Their work, their union, their family, their church, their bridge club, their Elks Club, whatever, have been eroded,” Arnade wrote in a Medium post this June.
But where longtime communities face challenges, immigrants are growing the green shoots. Bourdain saw it in Houston, and Arande discovered it in Lewiston, Maine. After 50 years of economic decline, the milltown found new life when Somali refugees moved there in search of good schools, low crime and affordable homes. Within a larger failing town, they built their own vibrant community.
“Economic activity. Building locally owned businesses. A community filled with hope and promise. And lots of [...] simple pride in the USA,” Arnade posted on Twitter.
From the Gulf Coast to New England and all across our nation, immigrants renew and revitalize the American spirit. They bring new hope and optimism and, if we’re lucky, some crawfish, pupusas and lots of beer.