Pit Magazine: Yay/Nay to America

A first look at our very special issue

Hello everyone, in the lead-up to the publication of Pit issue 16: America, we are going to be posting some content from the magazine here and on Instagram, to give you a taste of what it’s all about. To kick things off, we’ve got editors’ letters from Anna and myself, taking pro- and anti-America positions to introduce some of the issue’s key topics and themes. This will also serve as a little look behind the scenes, as these are our original, unedited letters, followed by a spread showing how they actually appear in the issue, after being significantly edited for length. Editing – especially making big cuts to the word count like this – can be brutal, but ultimately my attitude is that when you cut, you (hopefully) cut the weakest and least essential parts, leaving the finished product punchier and more succinct. Even if that does mean losing some, uh, colorful language… as you’ll see. (TA)

Tim and I had the most fun editing this special issue of Pit. And, as he notes above, we are going to be sharing some “behind the scenes” content both here and on Instagram. I can’t quite recall how we had originally planned our letters from the editor to be, but I’ve been a big fan of the (recently shuttered) New York Times’ Opinion column The Conversation, wherein journalists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens bandy their (often disagreeing) opinions about American politics back and forth, Q & A style. At some point, I suggested that Tim and I structure our letters in a similar fashion; and they are, sort of. And though our “conversation’s” back and forth is less integrated than Gail and Bret’s, it’s lovely and lively, and is similar to how Tim and I worked together on the editing process– sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, but always trying to tease out the key question at the heart of this issue: what’s the deal with American food? (AA)

Nay to America

Tim Anderson

We, the fucked-up people of the United States of America, do ordain and establish that we are fucking FUCKED.

But is this news? Were we ever not fucked? In recent years, I’ve become increasingly fucking disillusioned with the whole fucking concept of America. And to be disillusioned, there needs to be an illusion – I guess that’s why they call it the American dream.

I grew up believing in that dream. The fucking white picket fence, the nuclear fucking family, backyard barbecues, baseball games. All of it, beamed directly into my brain via re-runs on TV. The folksy, old-fashioned cornball charm of The Andy Griffith Show leading into the gee-whiz space-age slapstick of The Jetsons. Microwaved leftover utopian ideals from my parents’ generation, nostalgia and optimism from a time when maybe, just maybe, there was actually something to be nostalgic and optimistic about.

But now? Fuck. It’s looking very fucking likely that everything I thought was good and right about America was a massive fucking lie.

Whatever good has come out of America has happened in spite of it – not because of it. The “melting pot” was just a myth, a necessary corrective to the white supremacy baked into American socioeconomic structures. Our entire fucking history is one of institutional violence, racism, rapacious greed, fire-and-brimstone Christian bigotry, and imperial expansion dating all the way back to Plymouth fucking Rock (and don’t even get me started on Christopher fucking Columbus, who started all this shit). Do you buy into the story of Hamilton, of plucky immigrants making it in a new frontier and sticking it to the man? Or do you see these Founding Fathers as thieves and bullies, opportunistic, self-serving highwaymen and slave-owners who shamelessly flew a flag of “freedom” over plantations built on stolen land?

School shootings. Hate crimes. Carcinogenic food and contaminated water. The murder of George Floyd, and countless others like him. Catastrophic military interventions in the Middle East (and elsewhere). The kleptocracy of Donald Trump, bolstered by legions of brazenly corrupt officials and social media-damaged voters. Ongoing disasters like these aren’t threats to America – they are America. The American project has always been about the pursuit of private property and individual gain. It’s manifest fucking destiny, people. And this is the endgame.

We tell stories of American resilience, but against what? America, that’s what. We tell stories of reclaiming stolen land and forgotten culture, but from whom? From fucking America! In this issue, Uyen Luu writes beautifully on how Vietnamese migrants made a new home in California – because America fucked over Vietnam. Chiara Arellano recounts the inspiring story of the Black Panthers’ free breakfast clubs – because America fucked over black people and hungry kids. Annie Cheng tells the fascinating history of Delta Mississippi food – a whole regional cuisine born from various people America perennially fucked over.

Sure, yes, fine, we may have great burgers and tacos and barbecue – but America ain’t shit. I complain plenty about my adopted home of the UK, but never have I felt prouder, more deliciously smug about being a British citizen than when Trump was elected AGAIN. Electing Donald Trump once can be waved off as a silly mistake. But electing Donald Trump a second fucking time, and it’s no mistake: you’re absolutely fucked in the fucking head.

But you fucking British people, don’t start feeling high and mighty just yet. You’re just as fucked, because you fucking love us, you sickos! You can’t get enough of our regional fucking pizza and Reuben fucking sandwiches and Nerds Gummy Clusters and Coca fucking Cola. Maybe it’s for the best. Because just as your empire fell, America’s days as top dog are numbered, too. And when the whole world turns its back on America, just as we turned our back on the world, we’ll still have our Special fucking Relationship – just a couple of failed fucking states, riding off into the sunset together. Oceans rise, empires fall – we have seen each other through it all. And when push comes to shove, we will send a fully venture capital-backed chain of chicken wing shops to remind you of our love.

Photo credit: Laura Edwards

Yay to America

Anna Ansari

Hold up. Hold up, Tim.

I mean, yeah: I’m with you…to a point. There’s a lot to dislike about America. There’s a lot to be angry about, protest about, and VERY PROFUSELY swear about. I hear you. And I’m angry too. And disappointed. And frustrated. And scared. And sad. And really fucking happy I live in the UK. But I’m not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater…even when the baby’s one you’ve been forced to carry to term and that water’s been deliberately tainted. [Aside: more attention really does need to be paid to Flint. And reproductive rights. Obviously.]

Because I hold these truths to be self-evident.

Yes, the United States is a nation of immigrants living in a country of borrowed (read: stolen, and yes, I know, history has its eyes on us) land, but it’s also a country of ingenuity and survival, of creativity, possibility, opportunity, and perseverance.

Pupusas at the White House. Pecorino cheese and garlic-topped gulf oysters. Elk poyha and huckleberry pie. Celery-flavored soda. Hot tamales. Really big fucking drinks. Fried rice with a side of collard greens. Gumbo. Jambalaya. Sinaloan-style sushi. Pig ear souse. These are beautiful things, beautiful foods that couldn’t have been born anywhere else.

I sat on a rooftop in Detroit last month, eating a pizza and drinking a can of Founder’s, chatting with a table full of immigrants. Not one of the twelve of us had been born in America. My father and the majority of our table were all born in the Middle East. Me: Canada. My son: England. The woman to my right: Lithuania. And you know what we talked about that evening, as the sun set over the RenCen, Tigers Stadium, and the Guardian Building? We talked about the beauty and the freedom of America, of the promise, opportunity and relief that our country affords. Truly.

Every person at that table, save myself and Theo, made the choice to move and live in America; for every person at that table, save myself and Theo, the United States (even under Trump) could have been the worst country in the world… except for all the others. Not only did no one regret their choice; on the contrary, they were both proud of and thankful for it, proud to be Americans – where at least they know they’re free(er than in their birth countries)…. and well-fed. Oh yeah, we also talked a lot about food. About how food travels with people and changes, evolves, and adapts as we, the people, move. And about how much Theo loved the calamari. It was a beautiful night. The rooftop where it happens.

Oh and another thing, I don’t agree with you! The melting pot is not a myth.

Get thee to New York my friend, where waves of immigrants from across the globe have arrived, settled, and thrived for hundreds of years. You’re a Midwesterner like me; don’t sleep on Chicago and its mix of Polish, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Italian, and African American migration, food, and communities. Or what about Houston? It’s one of the most diverse cities in the country today, one in which Vietnamese, Latino, Nigerian and Indian immigrants live side by side with white and African Americans. Miami even! That city is a spectacular melting pot of Afro-Caribbean, Cuban, Jewish people, their cultures and cuisines. I could go on…

Look around at how lucky we are.

But America is even more than that. It’s a grill-top covered with beef franks, a deep-fryer full of french fries and onion rings and tater tots, and a pile of repurposed automotive pans waiting to be filled with pizza dough. And it’s a whole lotta hope, determination, and hustle. Just ask my dining companions that July evening.

We Americans are a messy people – and so is our food (good luck eating a coney dog or sloppy joe and coming away spotless: it’s not gonna happen). And like so much of our food, maybe we shouldn’t work, but we do (or we did, until recently– and fingers crossed shit changes at the mid-terms and that someone will teach this dingleberry how to say goodbye). We are a story of how flavors cross space and time, meet new worlds and make themselves at home. And how people do too. For now, at least. And I am proud to be a part of that, proud to be a product of that truly great experiment.

Messy. Improbable. Delicious. That’s America. Immigrants, we really do get the job done. And, as Yakov Smirnoff declared, “What a country!”