Anti-SJW types managed to meme this into being a thing, here’s origin of the actual BurritoGate hashtag:
[quote]“On the drive back up to Oregon, we were still completely drooling over how good [the tortillas] were, and we decided we had to have something similar in Portland,” Connelly said to Willamette Week. “The day after we returned, I hit the Mexican market and bought ingredients and started testing it out. Every day I started making tortillas before and after work, trying to figure out the process, timing, refrigeration and how all of that works.”
Not surprisingly, the discussion has gotten pretty heated in the comments section of the Willamette Week. “Nice appropriation,” one person wrote. “You go to a place once and your first thought is to steal from and mock the people from there. This is gross, and the fact that you got media attention is even more cringey. But like, oh my God Becky, you like… TOTALLY spoke the most broken Spanish ever!”
Another added, “Everyone goes to Mexico to find ‘get rich quick’ ideas.”
But the women also have their supporters, who note that they shouldn’t be chastised for starting a business in a way that’s common in the foodie world. “Are you all suggesting that Andy Ricker close Pok Pok? Should John Gorham close Toro Bravo? … If learning how to make a food from another culture and selling it is now considered cultural appropriation, then why not take this issue up with the successful PDX businesses that have been doing this at a much larger scale for years, and stop harassing these two women struggling to start a small business.”
In less than six months, Wilgus and Connelly have managed to build a business. And, depending on how you look at it, their methods are either genius or the latest example of white folks profiting off the labor of people of color.[/quote]
[quote]This week in white nonsense, two white women—Kali Wilgus and Liz “LC” Connely—decided it would be cute to open a food truck after a fateful excursion to Mexico. There’s really nothing special about opening a Mexican restaurant—it’s probably something that happens everyday. But the owners of Kooks Burritos all but admitted in an interview with Willamette Week that they colonized this style of food when they decided to “pick the brains of every tortilla lady there in the worst broken Spanish ever.”
“…You can eat $5 lobster on the beach,” Connelly said, “which they give you with this bucket of tortillas.” The “they” she was referring to were probably the Mexican “abuelitas” these two women preyed upon in order to appropriate the secrets of their livelihood. Suitably impressed, these tourists began asking the locals questions about how these tortillas were made. “They told us basic ingredients,” Connelly said, adding “[but] they wouldn’t tell us too much about technique.” Hmmm. Wonder why? This is where things go from quirky to predatory if you haven’t already guessed.
“…We were peeking into window of every kitchen, totally fascinated by how easy they made it look,” she said. So let’s recap the story thus far: These two white women went to Mexico, ate tacos, and then decided they would just take what the locals clearly didn’t want to give them. If that wasn’t bad enough, they decided to pack up all their stolen intellectual property and repackage it in one of the few places where such a business could plausibly work: Portland, Oregon.
…
Week after week people of color in Portland bear witness to the hijacking of their cultures, and an identifiable pattern of appropriation has been created. Several of the most successful businesses in this town have been birthed as a result of curious white people going to a foreign country, or an international venture, and poaching as many trade secrets, customs, recipes as possible, and then coming back to Portland to claim it as their own and score a tidy profit. Now don’t get me wrong: cultural customs are meant to be shared. However, that’s not what happens in this city.
Because of Portland’s underlying racism, the people who rightly own these traditions and cultures that exist are already treated poorly. These appropriating businesses are erasing and exploiting their already marginalized identities for the purpose of profit and praise.[/quote]
This was never a story about “white people can’t cook certain foods.” The story is literally framed around capitalizing on recipes taken by vacationing white people and turned into a successful business in Portland - and Portland has a lot of white people opening businesses based on a “gimmick” that originates from seeing something or eating something made by other cultures. Enough that it is a consistent conversation in the media from the area anyways.
I mean, the people challenging the stories are framing it as “white people can’t cook certain foods,” but that’s because the actual conversation about profiting on an experience you enjoyed in a poor area is a lot more difficult of a conversation so you better just meme about SJWs and set up a bunch of strawmen that are easier to address.
