Commerce and Community--Ethnic Grocery Stores (Deepam India, Toledo)
The idea that ethnic grocery stores can be places for the
creation of community hit home in my visit to an Indian grocery store and deli (Deepam
India) on the outskirts of Toledo. Surprisingly, though, the community
surrounding this store is not an ethnic one, but mostly “American.” It is made
up of people from diverse ethnicities and nationalities who all share an
interest in Indian food. And that interest comes from a variety of
motivations—taste, ethos and beliefs (vegetarian), curiosity, and health and
wellness concerns. As the owner, a woman, by the way, who earned a masters in
sociology at the local state university and previously ran a business teaching
technology skills to teachers, pointed out to me, the store’s community
represents the ideal American community—one in which people are drawn together
by common interests and values that cut across the usual culprits of
discrimination: race, class, gender, nationality, and religion.
Some of that is intentional on the part of the owner. She
generally hires women to work in the kitchen and the cash register, but looks
first at personality and personal habits rather than ethnicity. She wants
people who are friendly and personable, hard workers, and respectful of the
business and customers. Hence, the Lebanese woman who was working there when I
visited. She was wearing the hijab traditional to her Muslim heritage—a
colorful headscarf that covered her hair but not her face. She was friendly and
helpful and immediately understood what I was talking about when I asked about
her connections between food and culture. She laughingly pointed out that this
was not the food that she knows (she wasn’t familiar with one of my favorite Indian
dishes, malai kofta), but her enthusiasm and helpfulness made up for any lack
of knowledge of the cuisine. She also said she likes learning about another
culture’s food—and the culture represented by that food. Another woman working
there was Indian, dressed in a modern shalwar gameeze (tunic over pants). She
also was friendly, but couldn’t stop to chat (lack of time is a recurrent theme
in ethnic grocery stores).
It probably helps the business that current trends promote eating
a vegetarian diet and consuming Indian spices for health reasons. Turmeric and
ginger, in particular, are in the news this year (late 2013 and early 2014) for
giving all sorts of health benefits. Also, the explosion of programs about food
in the media is bringing new cuisines to the masses and also encouraging more
adventurous eating. Ethnic grocery stores and restaurants everywhere are
benefiting from these trends. (And also possibly from the opening up of
American society in recognizing diversity, but that’s a subject for another
time.)
Back to the idea of community, though. One of the critiques
of capitalism is that it turns all transactions into commercial ones valued
according to monetary profit. “Commodity fetishism” becomes rampant and shapes
the way we go through our daily lives and relationships. That seems to me a
pretty accurate observation, and I can draw upon all sorts of scholarly
writings to support it, but this particular business seems to have successfully
bucked the system. The owner told me that money is not the goal of the business.
Of course, it has to make enough money to sustain itself, but for her, it is a
way to do something meaningful, to utilize one of her skills (cooking) as well
as her cultural background (Indian, Hindu), and to interact with people.
It's the last point that struck me about the grocery store.
Although it initially did not seem busy with customers, it is actually the
center of a community in a very real sense. Individuals come there seeking
ingredients for dishes they’ve heard about and receive an education about
Indian cuisine and culture. (Cooking classes are offered occasionally when
enough people request them.) Individuals also come looking for spices and foods
for health or medicinal purposes and find themselves welcomed into a network of
others who have similar concerns, led by a business owner who cares more about
their health than about profits. And individuals come there out of curiosity
and are treated as new friends. All of these attitudes and interactions lay the
groundwork for an actual community of individuals who care about each other as
well as the food that brought them together.
And on the practical side, the store is doing very well
financially. It has even introduced a line of “healthy salads,” featuring
mostly beans with some Indian spices and cooking touches. (They even supply 3
area hospitals with these salads.) Maybe it’s a lesson other businesses can
learn from—promoting community through a commercial endeavor and putting it
before profit actually creates more profit----and strengthens the social
relationships we all need. Meanwhile, I'm taking home several dishes from the deli to share with friends and family and to strengthen my own little community.
