My research has been slow but steady over the past 2 weeks. I have narrowed myself down to focusing on the different kinds of foods that made it to America because of immigrants. I have found a few articles online discussing the significance of specific foods brought over by immigrant’s groups, specifically one in particular that labeled these foods as “Foodways” (http://immigrationtounitedstates.org/504-foodways.html). I have been using google, and the online UT library database, but I am having trouble finding articles particularly about how the immigrant food then affects U.S. culture. What phrases could help me narrow down my research to a more specific idea? My citation organization has been much more up to par than I originally anticipated with a simple word document that I continue to fill with citations as I find more texts. At the moment, I have several different texts, but I am nervous as to how much relevant content I can pull from them. For example, one article with a title that contains “…Knowing ‘Good Food’ Immigrant Knowledge…” is actually a very short news story related to farming and healthy foods and has little to do with immigrants (http://search.proquest.com/docview/1628003976?pq-origsite=summon). Overall, I think at this point I simply need to find more material that aligns specifically with historical immigrants bringing over their own foods and cultures to America. Most of my research is coming from more present day articles and books, but to really delve into my topic, I need to find some more historical texts to reference.
I think this is a really interesting idea, especially concerning the recent politics over immigration. I’m wondering if you are going to research more into one specific culture or are you going to examine every culture and how it has influenced America? I think it would be good to narrow your search just because you’ll find so many references if you have such a broad search. For example, maybe you want to focus on Mexican cuisine, this culture has deeply impacted the southwestern region and you could explore that more.
Going along with what you said, I think one way to find more articles would be to make a list of specific immigrant foods that interest you and then search for articles that address the origins of the food and how it ended up in America. There may be some written texts that may contain some of this information, so perhaps making a trip to the PCL will help you find some relevant information.