Day: November 7, 2020

Thuy Pham recently opened up Mama Dút (Đút in Vietnamese), a restaurant in Portland Oregon that serves vegan Vietnamese food. I was really interested when I saw this because I had previously had a conversation with the Vietnamese professor at Cornell about how difficult it can be to find vegetarian and especially vegan Vietnamese food, as so much of it is meat-heavy. As per so many of the class discussions we’ve had, there are always so many questions about “authenticity” and whether the vegan version of a dish can be called legitimate, but Pham has really managed to quell those dissenting opinions with her amazing food (which I’m so excited to try when I go home in a few weeks!) It’s so great to see more representation of what Vietnamese food is and can be. Pham is also very involved in the PDX community; during the BLM protests this spring/summer, she supported protesters by giving out free food from her pop-ups and she’s very involved with food insecurity activism.

https://pdx.eater.com/2020/11/6/21553177/mama-dut-restaurant-deli-morrison-vietnamese-vegan

“One night Nadia brought back some weed a coworker had given her. She did not know how Saeed would react and this fact struck her as she hiked. In a city of their birth they had smoked joints together with pleasure, but a year had passed since then, and he had changed since the, and perhaps she had too, and the distance that had opened between them was such that things once taken for granted could be taken for granted no longer.”

Weed, marijuana, pot, whatever you want to call it, it has a complex history alongside a complex perception. Similar to the steady rise of opium, marijuana had been used for medicinal purposes back in ancient China (). The use of such a plant was for rheutmatism, gout, malaria, and even absent mindedness (Ren). From there, the use of the plant spread across Asia, where India used the plant as a form of anxiety relief. By the mid 1500s, the Spanish brought the plant to the New World but not for enjoyment. The sturdiness of the hemp were ideal for clothing, ropes and other  practical material. At this time,  the transport of Africa slaves to Brazil was for the sole purpose of growing weed for smoking. The plant was soon brought tot he America from those fleeing Mexico where it became synonymous with the psychedelic properties of opium and cocaine.

This perception is one I wish to discuss.It speaks to American adoption of a plant that was initially seen as harmless and for even medical purposes but perhaps because it was brought by those who were perhaps considered less civilized, the use of the actual herb became an automatic association with those who came from it. Whatever aspect, whether cultural or not, inevitably led to the “white savior”  enforcement. Some examples are the 1910 ban of drugs and the Harrison Act in 1914 that outlawed the use of cannabis (Jaeger)

Finally in the fifties after a steady stream of users with the college hippies did the American view change. Whether we would like to admit it or not, it created a catalyst  that was leading to widespread acceptance of the drug. It’s interesting to see how perceptions have shifted as we see how commonly associated and even discussed the use of cannabis is in western culture. It also connects with the classic connection between Chinese restaurant syndrome and the need to “rebrand” to fit into a specific mold

History of Marijuana. “History of Marijuana.” Narconon International, www.narconon.org/drug-information/marijuana-history.html.