Content area
Full Text
Given that there is no geographical contiguity, historical connection or cultural proximity between Australia and Mexico, how can the remarkable proliferation of Mexican and more vaguely Mexican-style restaurants and tequila bars in contemporary urban Australia, or the now mundane availability of tortillas, salsas and other characteristic products in supermarkets, be accounted for? Australia is scarcely unique in experiencing such an influx of Mexican venues and products: it is a phenomenon of globalisation, but this article will trace the history of how in Australia, the particularities of direct cultural contact, taste subcultures, interpersonal networks and grass-roots entrepreneurism can open up new markets, and how the ground is thus prepared for subsequent large-scale international corporate entry into those markets.
At least an increasing number of more urban-dwelling young adults in Australia, Latin America has come to mean an imaginative landscape of attractive and colourful though indistinct cultural otherness, quite dislocated from its gritty realities of economic and political instability, mass poverty and everyday violence. Latin America is cool. In the larger cities, there is a vogue for the consumption of all things Latin American: notably music and dance, seen, for example, in downtown live music venues and salsa dance studios; for film and popular culture; and, most obviously, in food and drink. As well as the now familiar Mexican restaurants found in Australian cities and suburbs, not to forget the taco trucks appearing in recent years, other national cuisines on offer include Argentinian carne asada, Brazilian churrascaria, Colombian and Venezuelan arepas, Chilean empanadas and, the latest fashion, Peruvian ceviche. In themed restaurants of this kind, and liquor outlets, there is as well an array of tequila, mezcal and rum brands available from Mexico, Cuba and the Caribbean, and several beers not previously known, while the Brazilian soft-drink guaraná can be found in the convenience stores.
More than unremarkable indicators such as the advent of nachos on pub menus, there are certain quite culturally aware manifestations of Mexican influence. In the case of Melbourne, a city of over four million people of diverse cultural origins, although relatively few Mexicans (1,478 in the whole state, according to the 2016 census), there is an annual Mexican festival in the heart of the city each Spring;...