About
This session uses butter chicken—and food more broadly—as a lens for examining how immigrant identities are made palatable, marketable, and legible to dominant audiences. Moving beyond cuisine, the conversation explores the many ways immigrants learn to translate and repackage themselves: adjusting how they speak, describe their experiences, present their qualifications, and perform culture in order to be understood or accepted. It considers the line between adaptation and assimilation, and asks what is simplified, concealed, or lost when complex identities must be presented in familiar and consumable forms.
Featuring: Ahmer Naqvi, Mohammed Hanif, Maya El Helou
Moderator: Val Duarte