Food fight! Gigante grocery versus the city of anaheim

Abstract

Food fight! In 2002, a battle flared in Orange County, California, over a store seeking the local Hispanic/Latin market. Members of the Anaheim City Council objected to the opening of a new grocery store by the Mexico-based chain Gigante as “too Spanish.” At issue were Gigante’s use of Spanish language signage, Spanish-speaking clerks, and a product mix attentive to Hispanic tastes. Gigante’s struggle to be viewed as a legitimate grocery chain competing for American consumers highlights the conflicts faced by growing ethnic populations, as new economic power is hampered by lagging political and communicative power. The path to public legitimacy is fraught with challenges, for organizations and consumers. Market forces exert tremendous influence on the processes of identity construction and acculturation, as California and the nation struggle to come to terms with immigration, economics, and competing notions of identity. This article presents a close analysis of the communicative constructions of acculturation and identity, framed by the rhetoric of legitimation-in-progress, enacted through capitalism, and encapsulated in a food fight in Anaheim yielding crucial information for multicultural businesses looking to expand their U.S. market share.